While most of Dayton’s career tech programs are housed at Ponitz Career Tech Center and Meadowdale Career Tech Center, other DPS high schools and middle schools are adding career tech programs.
Lisa Minor, the district’s assistant superintendent, said these programs have already helped improve graduation rates, academic performance and attendance. Additionally, the state is encouraging its high schools to offer more career technical programs to better align with the jobs of the future.
“When we look at the data, attendance rate, graduation rate…performance, overall engagement in school is higher when kids have these kinds of options and learning experiences,” Minor said.
Like others I know who grew up in Dayton, I had relatives attend Colonel White High School, a former DPS trade school. The high school has since closed and Dayton Public sold the site at 501 Niagra Ave. in the Santa Clara/Mount Vernon neighborhood in 2019.
Career tech services are the closest model that modern schools have to the old trade schools. The difference is twofold.
One, many of the skilled programs that career tech schools offer students are not limited to trades, with many schools offering programs like robotics and engineering. Two, the students in those programs aren’t limited to students who are “failing” — instead, they are attracting some of the highest-achieving students.
Minor is leading a push to improve high school academics, including adding more advanced placement and College Credit Plus programs into Dayton’s high schools. But the career technical piece stands out because many of these programs are high-tech, intense classes where local businesses work with high school students.
Meadowdale converted from a regular high school to a career tech program in the 2020-2021 school year. Principal Eddie Davis, a Meadowdale graduate himself, has overseen the development of many of the career tech programs.
While Meadowdale has just one star on the most recent state report card from 2023-2024, it received five stars on the career technical report card the same year. Within the report card data, the percentage of graduating students who had gone through a pathway and been prepared for post-graduate success has risen from less than 6% of the graduating class in the 2020-2021 school year to more than 57% in the 2023-2024 school year.
Davis said he’s watched some of the same socially anxious kids as freshmen who aren’t interested in athletics find a passion in career tech and bloom. Meadowdale kids have competed in coding competitions with other kids in the region at Sinclair Community College and in the Health Occupations Students of America, or HOSA, competitions, with two healthcare students competing nationally last year.
“I thought that was huge, because a lot of these kids I’ve been having since they were freshmen, now they’re seniors. You couldn’t get them to stand up in front of anybody,” Davis said. “But now, here they are – I’ll watch them present and do it confidently.”
Davis said since the career tech kids have competed in competitions and won against other schools, it’s been a mindset shift for the students.
“That makes me feel good to know that this is what’s going on in Meadowdale,” Davis said. “And it’s not a dog and pony show, you know, it’s authentic and we’re going to continue to be that way.”
Meadowdale seniors Christopher Morgan and Amirr Landers are part of the robotics engineering pathway. Morgan said he joined the program because he wants to be a mechanic and sees the pathway as a way to get to that goal. Landers said he plans to go to trade school to become an electrician.
“So all this wiring is helping me understand what I have to do,” Landers said.
Matthew Folkerth, DPS’s director of career technical education, said the students coming out of the district’s healthcare pathways and especially pre-nursing students, are being actively recruited by Premier Health. He said that’s because Premier had come to see the program and seen the quality education standards, but also because those students come from the community and understand the culture.
“That’s the other piece, is that they’re pulling kids from the community to actually help and cure problems that are in their community,” Folkerth said.
Next year, DPS plans to offer more than 30 career technical programs at their high schools. Plans for new programs include aviation at Meadowdale, hair braiding and entrepreneurship at Dunbar High School and sheet metal, which would be offered at Belmont High School.
But DPS also is discussing ways that students at different high schools might be able to enter programs they’re interested in that aren’t offered in their high school — for example, a Stivers School for the Arts student who is interested in nursing.
SOME OF THE DPS PROGRAMS
- Pre-Nursing – at Thurgood Marshall STEM High School and Dunbar High School provided by Kettering Health Network.
- Pre-Nursing CTE program at Meadowdale Career Tech High School.
- EMT Training – at Ponitz Career Technology Center, featuring the state’s only high school ambulance that simulates driving on the road.
- Phlebotomy Licensing – offered at six of the seven high schools.
- Early Childhood Education Credentialing – available at all high schools, taught at Rosa Parks Early Learning Center.
- Pharmacy Technician – at Ponitz Career Technology Center.
- Dental Assisting – at Ponitz Career Technology Center.
- Engineering and Robotics – at Ponitz Career Technology Center.
- Gaming Development – at Meadowdale Career Technology Center.
- Auto Tech – at Ponitz Career Technology Center.
- Robotics Engineering – at Meadowdale Career Technology Center.
- Surgical Technology – at Meadowdale Career Technology Center.