Mrs. Priest’s veterinarian class is not like many others in Har-Ber. Tucked away in the back of the school, Priests’ Veterinary Science class gives students a way to explore being a veterinarian. In the class, Priest teaches her students how to groom animals, perform basic care, checkups, and more. Ms. Priest often brings in students’ pets for the students to practice their skills on, in order to engage them and make sure they learn how to effectively care for animals. Mrs. Priest’s Veterinary Science class is one of Har-Ber’s Career and Technical Development classes, often abbreviated as CTE. These classes offer a separate curriculum from standard core classes. Instead, these classes offer students a chance to learn about skills directly related to a job. For almost as long as Ms. Priest has been here, this class has always existed, giving students a chance to pursue a career in veterinary medicine. However, the 75 students currently in the program will be some of the last. Next year will be the last time Veterinary Science will be offered at Har-Ber. After that, the program is gone. According to Ms. Priest, she was told that “The district has decided that vet science is not providing the industry credentials and opportunities for students that they feel like it should.”
“They didn’t really even give me a reason…Mr Weiss came down and said ‘We are not teaching it,’” Priest said.
She was not the only one who reportedly experienced vague answers. Ms. Bunch, the teacher for the Fashion and Interior Design class, another CTE class, was also told her class is being removed from the curriculum with no further explanation.
“I haven’t heard any reasoning coming from our administrative office yet, just Dr Griep. He let me know that my course was getting phased out. He didn’t really have any solid answers for why,” Bunch said.
Both of the teachers were fairly confused. Both of their classes were popular and even had good job prospects. Ms. Priest talked about students who had already gotten jobs in the veterinary industry. Ms. Bunch talked about a former student of hers who had started her own business as a seamstress. When it comes to the numbers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics records the salaries for veterinarians and interior designers as being higher than the median wage for Arkansas. Interior Designers also have a high location quotient, which means Arkansas has a special economy for interior designers, putting them in fairly high demand. So why are these classes being cut? One thing that both Ms. Priest and Ms. Bunch had brought up was “H3.”
H3 stands for “High wage, high demand, high skill”, and is a metric used to describe jobs that CTE
classes should be aligned with. This starts as part of the LEARNS Act, which subchapter 18 states that a statewide audit must be performed every year to further align CTE classes with current jobs offered in the economy. In the first of these audits, conducted over the first half of 2023, the University of Arkansas’s Office for Education Policy states that there is very little “alignment” between CTE classes and H3 occupations, meaning that CTE classes were not getting students prepared for the “important jobs.”
According to Springdale Public Schools workforce director Mr. Rodney Ellis, this audit is very important for making sure the classes are aligned. Ellis is a member of the group that brought these changes to the Springdale Public Schools area, including Ellis, Superintendent Dr. Jared Cleveland, Deputy Superintendent Dr. Marcia Smith, Associate Superintendent for 8-12th Mrs. Shannon Tisher, and CTE Coordinator Mrs. Kelly Williamson.
“The state’s current structure for organizing programs of study does not allow for easy analysis of directional alignment with high-demand, high-skill, high-wage occupations,” Ellis said.
Har-Ber has become one of the schools trying to increase the “alignment” between jobs and CTE classes, along with the rest of Springdale Public Schools.
“Those decisions are made to look at aligning what courses we offer, instead of just offering a little bit of everything,” Griep says.
The audit also officially states definitions for the 3 H’s, with the high wage meaning “an average wage over the median wage for Arkansas”, the median wage being $48,882 for a single individual according to the Department of Justice. While this new criteria could explain cuts in the CTE program, the teachers of this program are still confused.
“[Veterinarian] is high skill, high wage, I don’t know if it qualifies as high demand,” Priest said.
The definitions also do not seem to be scaled. In other words, a job that pays 1 dollar more than the median wage and one that pays double the median wage gets the same “high wage” label. Furthermore, the audit lists a job as being in high demand if it is, “a high-priority industry sector that has a substantial current or potential future impact on the state economy.” However, how that is determined is unclear. One could argue that veterinarians are a low-demand industry through employment numbers and location quotient, but one could argue a high “potential impact” by citing the two new veterinarian schools that are supposed to open up in Arkansas in the future. It also not defined what a high priority sector is, as it seems veterinarians are, according to an article from the Arkansas Democratic Gazette titled “Pet owners struggle to find basic and specialized care in the region.” The article states that veterinarians are in high demand in Arkansas, and even that Arkansas has the greatest need for veterinarians of any state.
Furthermore, some of the industries listed in the audit as the top 10 H3 jobs don’t seem to definitively fit that label. First-line supervisors, for example, are a top 10 H3 job according to the audit but often have salaries below the median for Arkansas. Meanwhile, Interior Designers meet high wages and high demand but are getting removed from the curriculum. A flow chart provided by Dr. Griep featured all the
CTE classes offered next year, but according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, many of the classes do not meet high-wage and high-demand requirements. This can be confusing to some, as according to Ellis, seeing if students are learning skills that will provide them with an H3 job is one of the goals of the realignment. One other point of conversation is what is being done to offset these cuts.
“The things that are added, if you will, I mentioned the internship opportunities. So for example, if your passion is, let’s say plumbing, after you’ve taken some of the foundational courses here, we might connect you with Kimble Mechanical or another business in the community,” Griep said.
Dr Griep is speaking of the internship and JAG program, which allows students to leave school in order to go to their job or internship. The school also offers programs to try to connect students with internship opportunities, with teacher Mattie Still running the program. Griep states these programs can offset class cuts, but some may disagree. For one, it is unclear if the resources of providing an internship program that one teacher runs and allows students to leave the school is similar to something like a dedicated class.
The cutting of Fashion and Interior Design and Veterinary Science still seems to confuse many. Dr. Griep states that this is part of an effort to align classes with H3 jobs in order to forge better opportunities for students and the economy. According to the state audit, these adjustments are able to create better pathways for students into quality jobs, as well as providing current needs for the workforce. However, some of the requirements still remain confusing. While the audit provides definitions for H3, it does not further explain how certain jobs meet H3, and what data they use to come to that conclusion. According to Ellis, these cuts are simply part of the state wide realignment. When asked about what is being done to offset the cuts, he referred to a section in his answer document that refers to this goal.
“The state’s current structure for organizing programs of study does not allow for easy analysis of directional alignment with high-demand, high-skill, high-wage occupations. Therefore, this analysis focuses on the most completed programs of study,” Ellis said.
Ellis also spoke about where the resources from these cut classes will go, saying that these cuts will allow for more level 1 CTE class offerings for students. Furthermore, Ellis also elaborates on how teachers are
changing their curriculum to better accommodate these changes.
“This is a culture change for instructors who must now constantly push to remain relevant in skill attainment and industry changes,” Ellis says. “For example, SHS Agriculture instructors Chad Burkett and Josh Rice have pushed forward to obtain industry electrical training at BIT in Electrical, CDL-Class A training, and Mill & Lathe Training. Students at SHS are now being employed at Nabholz, Multi-Craft, Kimbel Electrical, and many other local businesses due to the skills learned through Agricultural Mechanics classes at SHS.”
Ellis did not talk specifically about Har-Ber, but if a cutting of these classes could mean more resources to these types of classes, then it would make the cuts make more sense. Still, some of the classes being cut also offered similar opportunities to their students.
According to Carter Whittenberg, a student in the Veterinary Science class, “Vet Science has helped me get jobs working in the animal industry, as well as teach me beginner level vet medicine that will give me an advantage in my Veterinarian career.” Whittenberg currently works as an Animal Caretaker at Wedington Animal Hospital.
Ms. Priest pointed at a student during her interview.
“She works at a vet clinic,” Priest said.
She pointed at another.
“She’s planning to go to vet school. Like, we have kids that are planning to go to vet school in these classes.” Priest said, “I think that we’re gonna hurt our students. I’ve had lots of students go through this program who are now out working in the animal industry.”
Ms. Priest’s class is not the only one with students progressing into the industry. Ms. Bunch’s class also has successful students.
“I have a student from a couple of years ago that just opened up her own business as a seamstress,” Bunch said.
But to Ms. Bunch, CTE classes are not just about preparing you for a career. They’re about preparing you for life.
“When you operate a sewing machine or do a project, you’re not just learning the mechanics. You’re learning to problem solve, read directions, and persevere when things are hard. The digital design programs that we use for interior design are glitchy or don’t work the way you want to. But you still have to figure it out and do the project, and at the end, there really is a sense of accomplishment,” Bunch said.
The statewide audit largely focused on the economic aspect of these classes. They see it as these classes’ purpose to prepare students for a certain profession, which provides the workforce with the workers they need. But to Ms. Bunch and Ms. Priest, there is more to these classes than just that. Ms. Priest pointed out how the students were all engaged and working, not on their phones, something she values. Dr Griep seemed to agree with this statement.
“I do applaud the work the teachers are doing because they’re not only teaching standards but they’re teaching skills that students can use in life,” Griep said.
Jobs are one of the most important things in society and in people’s lives. A balance between making the right amount of money and doing something that you love can be very difficult to achieve. For students, being taught skills about their desired career can launch them into a good job early, and help them discover themselves.
“I’ve learned how to administer stitches and bandage wounds on an animal. I’ve learned how to groom dogs, the use of surgical tools, as well as animal behavior… I think keeping vet science will aid future students in advancing their veterinary careers,” Whittenberg said.
These are the goals of the CTE program in the first place, to teach students skills needed to obtain a job. Having a robust CTE program then is important, which is why changes like these are so important to look at. This is the first year of these changes to the program, and it remains to be seen whether these changes
will restrict students’ access to further careers, or allow the program to flourish and get more students into fulfilling careers.
Update: As of April 2, 2024, the definitions of H3 have changed. According to a memo sent from the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, high skill has been removed, leaving high demand and high wage remaining, changing the descriptor to H2. High demand is listed as a job having a 10 year forecast total demand greater than or equal to 0.4 percent of the current total employment in Arkansas. For example, the current number of employed people in Arkansas is 1,386,991, meaning a high demand job must offer a 10 year forecast total demand of 5,548 openings or more. High wage is listed as a job offering a wage above or equal to the living wage of $39,728.00, as determined by the MIT Living Wage calculator. This may leave some statements coming from the definitions inaccurate, though classes were still removed based on the old definitions. The memo also states that, starting in the 2024-2025 academic year, each school must offer at least one class that offers a pathway to one of 18 H2 jobs. One of the H2 areas listed is “Animal Systems”, implying veterinary science might be an H2 job. According to Priest, the class is still being removed from the curriculum.