Hello and welcome to another episode of Penllis County Schools podcast, Building Tomorrow, finding your why. I'm your host, Ron Chell. It is always my pleasure to share with our audience the amazing educational career opportunities offered through Penllis County Schools.
Our career preparation programs allow public education to soar beyond any other educational choices. Through our recognized amazing career and technical education teachers, Panelis County Schools offers 48 exploratory courses in our middle
schools and 54 complete programs of study at our high schools. We are so very proud of all of our programs that we host the experience PCS annual event. We recently spoke with a few of our outstanding programs at this year's event. Stay tuned with us and learn
about three schools and their career program offerings. >> [music] [music] [music] >> Hi, Ron Schnell coming at you from the experience Penllis here in Penllis County. finding out about all of our schools and our programs and the
wonderful things that we do that sometimes can't happen at other programs, meaning charter schools, homeschool situations, private schools. Here in career technical education, we have some amazing things going on. One of those things is a lot of those things are happening at Richard O. Jacobson
Technical High School. We have members from our building department, our nursing, and our vet. So, if you'll take a moment and introduce ourselves uh and uh let us know what program you're representing. Hi, my name is Maline Lance. I am a senior in the veterary science program. I'm also the president
of our FFA chapter. >> All right. I'm Vince Vulpi. I am the instructor for electrical and construction technologies. Jacobson. >> And Christine Petrulus. Uh I am the nursing instructor and I uh teach LPN
foundations and CCMA and anatomy and physiology and EKG tech. >> Yeah. So there's a lot going on in the nursing field over there. Yes. Uh in addition to the programs that you have offered at the campus, you also do a dual enrollment. Um I'm understanding
that you've graduated a round of uh am I saying it right? LPNs. >> Yep. Yep. We have graduated five rounds of LPNs since the inception at at Jacobson. >> So these students are coming out of high school and being able to go right into
the workforce. And you know, I'm sure they're carrying a big round of debt with them, right? >> None. None. None at all. None at all. No, they finished with their LPNs. Um they do have to complete all their graduation requirements by the end of their junior year to be able to do that, but they go right out into the field.
They're uh probably taking care of of your loved ones actually. >> Yeah, >> that's great. So, you know, in in Penllis County and a lot of places in Florida, we do have the need for nursing. So, that's one of those great programs that we offer out there. But of course you're also familiar with the building explosion that's going on.
Vince, what can you tell us about your program? >> Yes. Well, my program is basically we were focusing on electrical and uh the construction field. So that's pretty much all of the um uh working trades out there. We have been there. This is my 10th year there with uh uh at uh Tech
High. And um we have years and years of of students that have graduated went on to to work with contractors in the area. I can name plumbers and fitters and people that work in manufacturing, people that are electricians. They get into apprenticeships directly out of
high school with us. So, they go right into an apprenticeship program where they're learning in the field while they are earning money. Um, the greatest thing about that is that they have zero debt. They're actually earning dollars while they're in the field along with the experience. Then they go to schools and a lot of these contractors, they'll
pick up any fees um for these students that are are are employed by them [music] because they're are they are in such high demand, right? We're trying to close what's called the skills gap. The skills gap is so many people are retiring out of the trades and not enough people are coming into the trades. So, we're getting the old-timers
retiring with all this knowledge and young people not entering into the trades. So, by the coming to our school, they're able to get hands-on um experience before they go out there and get into the working field, becoming an apprentice. That's the greatest thing about us is that we bring these kids
right to the workforce as apprentices, and they work their way right up the field and become journeymen all over the place, whether it's a plumber, a fitter, a you know, pipe uh a pipe fitter or a um even a painter. We have kids that went out there and they started their own businesses. The entrepreneurial uh
side of it is is huge. Exactly. So, we've been doing it hopefully very successful for the past few years and uh hopefully we got a quite a few more years of of success with this program. >> Well, we know you have. So, yeah, let's keep going with that. Um and then we have our veterinary program. This is one of the most amazing places that you'll
go for this experience. Can you tell us about what's going on over there? >> Yeah, so as a freshman and sophomore, you have two periods of vet. One of them you're in class learning like your basic skills. You learn terminology, you learn anatomy. Anatomy is our biggest unit. So you go through all the different body systems. Skeletal is like the longest
and hardest. You learn about each breed because obviously as a vet instead of like nursing, it's just the one human body. Vet, we learn everything from exotics to domestics to livestock. We cover it all. And then when you get into be an upper classman, you have your one period of vet. And the majority of students who are upper classmen, they
are halfway through with their internship. We require a 250 hour internship for all students to complete their CVA, which is fairly easy for what you're trying to do in the vet field. Um, so not only will you get your CVA, which is your certified vet assistant. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Um, you'll be working in a vet
hospital getting hands-on skills. So, me personally, I've been in two different internships. My current one, I was actually offered a job as an assistant. So, I am being I am working. I'm getting paid as well as still getting the hands-on skills. I do blood draws, I do vaccines, I restrain, I do uh nail trims, I've sat in on a couple
surgeries. So, it's all around super cool. And then your senior year, you kind of like relearn everything and then you test for your CPA. We have a 100% pass rate for it. >> So I have to back up a little bit here. You are working part-time. >> I am >> in your field of choice. >> So in high school and you got a little
bit of money to uh go to the movies and do all whatever kids do these days. [laughter] >> Don't can't say that I've got that going on right now. Mine a little older. Well, that's awesome to see those type of experiences happen out there. So you know we know Tech High is a little bit different. It's a limited amount of
students can fit into the facility. Um but from what are your experiences? I mean do you have the opportunity should you wanted to go out for a sport or be part of the band or anything like that? >> Yeah. So tech high in itself is really small. We have about 600 kids. We don't have any athletics on campus but students will go to their zone schools.
Uh one of my personal friends he was part of the seminal parade or seminal band and they went to the Rose Bowl parade. And so it was such a cool experience. He would like send us pictures. He's like I'm in Disneyland right now. So students will do sports, they'll do all like band and stuff like that. That's at their zone school or they can get like a special attendance
permit. In our school though, we have a lot of clubs. Um my personal favorite, I am very biased, is FFA. That's what I'm here representing today. Uh we show two different animals at the state fair. We show rabbits and we show dairy heers. So those are cows that haven't given birth yet. So we'll have baby cows in January. Actually, we have about 30 people
showing rabbits [music] this year. So at the uh Florida State Fair in February, we'll all be there. You show them in front of a judge. We have over 30 rabbits of in general, but we have eight on campus. So FFA, it's not just for farmers, by the way. FFA is Future Farmers of America. Let me clarify that.
It's not just for farmers. It's for anybody who wants to learn public speaking or get involved in their community. We're having a dog wash soon. We do an end of the year banquet. We do meetings every month. So it's a really good community. That's like the biggest thing that I'm a part of. Also, I'm a part of other clubs. I'm part of NHS.
I'm a part of FBLA. So you really get like a wide spectrum. But my favorite thing about the school is that when you graduate, you graduate with like so many certificates. I'm CPR certified. I have a cert or certified in Photoshop. I'm getting my CVA. And so when I leave, like I'll be working in the industry
instead of working at like Pizza Hut. [laughter] >> Well, now wait a second. There is something else to be said about, you know, all of us went through that one, right? [laughter] Yeah. All right. Well, Dr. Pulis, anything else you'd like to share to our conversation today? >> No. No. Um, I think I think probably the
coolest thing about my program is a lot of students figure since we've added the CCMA, a lot of them figure that come in as eighth graders thinking they want to be nurses and then they go out to clinical and realize that's not really what I thought I wanted to do. And so bringing in that other path, we have a
lot of premed kids now um in our CCMA program and so it's bringing we're able to adapt to all the medical professions using that um that approach. So we have the the LPN which some of if you're familiar with the INLEX but CCMA what is
that? >> Um it's a clinical certified medical assistant. So they can work um in any outpatient setting directly with physicians or physical therapists or occupational therapists or um if they want to go into any of the like sports medicine and things like that. It gives
them an alternate pathway to work in a field um uh that's a little bit broader than LPN where LPN is strictly nursing. So, um it's it bringing in that second pathway brought in uh helped a lot of the students who maybe didn't want to touch patients that way [laughter] or
didn't want didn't realize that nursing really was cleaning up, you know, patients and taking care of patients in such an intimate way. It's a big decision when you're an eighth grader. of um a lot of times after clinical they stay they decide they want to stay in the medical pathway but maybe didn't
want nursing and so we've we've kind of exploded that second pathway and it's uh it's been great it's about a 50/50 split right now I would say of students who uh decide they want to stay at tech high for their senior year to do the CCMA and EKG tech or go on to the LPN program >> and we see that a lot in our programs
where uh we get a little bit of a delian into it and then start to appreciate that there are other avenues if if you will, to whatever field we're in. I mean, you know, Vince was talking about uh you know, all the things that go into building construction. >> Yeah, that I mean, that's one of the things once you mentioned that, it dawned on me again is that there's a lot
of peripherals, we call them, in construction, no matter what they are. There's a lot of peripheral um let's call them vocations or or or um you know, careers that you can get into that have to do with construction, but maybe are on the outskirts. You know, we have
we have [snorts] construction law. So, kids that are interested in construction, it would be great for them to know what they're doing if they were interested in getting into construction law. We have a lot of engineers that that want to come and take my courses and they're like, "Hey, I love this because I I love the way things work, you know." So, it's a it's a there's a
ton of of of peripheral jobs that are surrounding our separate programs that are really interesting and you're allowed to come there and explore them and then some of the kids learn about those and they're like, "Oh, yeah, that's the direction I want to go." And I just want to plug our our um
content teachers because we have some of the best in the business. I mean, our our primary content teachers, your math teachers, your English teachers, your history, science, I like we have the best in the business, and they're always cross collaborating and trying to bring
in the CTE programs into the classroom, trying to modify it to make sure that the vet and the nursing students biology class sounds is is prepared for the nursing and vet biology class. And and the geometry teachers stacked right across the street from Mr. Vulpi's class
because geometry is so intertwined in building and construction and >> got to know measurements. What? [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I think that's probably the like the one of the what makes our program so great is that the content teachers are all very well-versed in
their programs and can cross collaborate so easily. >> Well, certainly check out Richard Jacobson Technical High School. Many of these programs happen to be offered at other schools in your area. So, if it's not convenient to you or you're just not able to get down that way, uh, go online
and find out what might be available for you. We thank you all for being here. >> Thanks for having us. [music] >> Hey, we're coming back to you with another amazing program. This one hails from Lakewood High School. This is the Center for Advanced Technologies, the
CAT program. Kind of my old stomping grounds, if you will. So, what I'd like to do is have our guests introduce themselves and uh tell us what program they're in or over if you would. >> I am Lucas Hefty. I'm the assistant principal over the CAT program at Lakewood. >> I am Honor Archer. I am in digital media
and uh content creation. I am also a CAT ambassador in the CAT program. >> Awesome. >> I am Alex Patterson and I am in the AI and robotics CA pathways. >> All right. Well, uh Mr. Hefty, tell us about some of the different programs that are offered. I I when I was there,
we had a lot of variations. I know robotics is still pretty strong and and you've brought on a couple other programs. >> Yeah, we have three main pathways. Robotics, AI or artificial intelligence, and then content creation, which is a lot of digital media. Each of those pathways has a 4-year um of courses and
pathways. Each of those years includes industry certifications along the way for our students. >> That's awesome. That's awesome. And honor, you and which programs were you in again? I apologize. uh digital media and uh content creation. >> And so how has that been one of is it one of those things that intrigues you?
You okay, I want to get out of this class to go to that one or >> No. No. It's like it's fun at the same time cuz you like create your own things. You create everything and we have a show that goes every morning. So anything that you create could go on the
show. So yeah, that's why uh digital media and um content creation is like like good for me, but at the same time it's fun also. >> Is this something you think you would want to do maybe go a little more schooling on or maybe jump into the field and go to work in?
>> Maybe opportunities. Opportunities >> and what and again your programs are >> uh AI and robotics. >> Okay. So you got that technical edge to you there, right? Yeah. So, uh, what about, [music] uh, what about robotics or AI is is making it so exciting for
you? >> Uh, for robotics, I've always been interested in robots and how they work and all like the science and technicalities behind them. Um, so when I found out like all these certifications, all this cool stuff that I get to build and make, um, robotics really interested me. And then the way that the world's headed, where we're
more invested in AI, I feel like the way I'm building with all these certification stuff, I'm making two fallbacks for myself. So, if I don't like if one pathway doesn't work out the way I want it to, I just go to another one. And they're both really strong in their fields. >> And what are you thinking about after you graduate? >> Um, I might like go into the workforce maybe like a little bit, but I'll
probably start school to further my education pathway interesting more than the other. >> Okay. Okay. So, you're pretty are you programming a lot these days or? >> Oh, yeah. I'm programming a lot. I'm uh in like the programming elective class as well. So, there's the AI programming. I got to program for robotics and the
top of the class as well. So, >> Congratulations. Yeah, I like it. So, how how would somebody who's who's watching our program uh how would they get into your program? What's what's the steps to get into one of these programs? >> So, first they want to apply as they are ready to enter 9th or 10th grade. They
want to apply as part of the district application program process that starts in January. Um if they miss that time frame, then they can always go through the late application that usually opens in March. >> Okay. So uh so the CAP program has some opportunities um and they can come down and they can shadow. They can see uh
different things that are happening there as well. >> Yeah, we offer shadowing so they can follow a student around for the day, learn about a day in the life. We also offer parent tours, lot of other opportunities to get to know our campus. Um our students can also get transportation. So if they live anywhere south of Oton, they can get a bus route
to our school. >> That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. Now, as we mentioned in the past, some of these programs are offered in different areas. I don't know of any other content creation in and of itself. So, that's a real uh uh checkbox for for their program here at Lakewood. Um, if
you were Let's I don't know if you all ever had to deal with this thing. If you know what an elevator pitch is, you have 30 seconds to tell somebody why they should come to your program. Do you think I could get something like that out of you? We're going to start with Mr. Hefty first cuz he's done this before. So, >> so I would say we offer pathways and
also learning spaces. our robotics lab, our new esports classroom, our Capcom studios, these are experiences and pathways and spaces you're not going to get at any other school. So, if you're really into one of those things, this is definitely the place for you. >> That's awesome. What would you tell your
friends? Why should they be going to C? >> Well, just like he said um about everything about pathways and whatnot, you can also come for like sports and like that clubs like our club, esports, >> we just won. We're going to get our trophies, but at the same time, you can
win uh you can win at sports. Uh football, soccer, basketball, anything. Same with the girls. Same with girls. And the clubs like chess, esports, uh let's see, drama club, art club, and like most stuff. Yeah, >> that's awesome. I see. What would you
how would you get your friends to come and join the CAP program? >> Um I would probably show them like all the industry certifications that it has as there's like so much to do in each of these pathways. Um, as far as I know, I have like compared it to like my other schools when I was first um, going to join and the amount of certifications
and like skills and all the stuff that you get far outweighs any of the other skills in terms of like volume that I had uh, looked at. >> That's awesome. And for our listeners that are familiar with these industry certifications, uh, these are ways that particularly uh, businesses would say, hey, this is a candidate who's ready for
work or employment. And for those going into further education, a [music] lot of times these certifications will um articulate into a credit for them. So that's a class you don't have to take or something along that line. Um so we want to thank you all for taking the time out
of uh out of uh experience to come and and share this with our audience. >> All right. Thank you for having us. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. [music] Welcome back. We are again here at Experience Penelis and I've run into some amazing programs at Penllis Park
High School. Now, unlike other programs that you've heard, these are unique to Penllis Park. So, what I'd like to do is have our guests introduce themselves and tell us the program that they're in. >> Okay. I'm Amber Petri and I teach emergency planning and response which is a program that allows our students to
have a real world experience from people that have been in the industry and may come out with externships, [music] internships and certifications that will help them for employment in industry out in the real world. So we have everything from search and rescue to firefighting. We take our kids outside every year and
teach all of them because we know they're not all going to be first responders. Teach all of them how to put out a kitchen fire. just real world life skills that they're going to need one day whether or not they stick with our career fields. >> It's salt, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Doesn't everybody know that? >> No. [laughter]
>> Dr. W. >> Hi, I'm Dr. Jelica W. My students call me Dr. J. I teach in the criminal justice academy. I teach uh the seniors and juniors. Um we do investigations, crime scene investigations. So, our program has a little bit of everything. Uh so if you want to be a cop uh and a
law enforcement officer, we have courses that teach you about that. Uh we have courses that teach you if you want to be a lawyer or a judge one day. And then of course I teach crime scene investigation and forensic science. So our students also do a lot of hands-on laboratory experiments. Uh they actually have
microscopes and so they learn how to identify trace evidence at a crime scene. We have a mock apartment in which our students get to do mock crime scene investigations and they learn this skill set. Um, and they're all really able to just track with life skills, but they
have to use critical thinking, right? Because we set it up so that if they have a crime scene, what do you do? Right? You don't just go under the yellow tape. You have to ensure that you meet with your first responding officers and has our first responders, our fire and our EMTs, have they cleared the
scene? Is there a dead body? If so, what do we do with that? Um, so our students get the opportunity to really kind of see an investigation from beginning to end and understand all the processes that go with it. And so whether they want to become a civilian in the law enforcement community, whether they want
to be uh in the criminal justice side of things, if they want to do law enforcement, our program allows them to kind of pick from each of those pieces and decide what they want to seek out best. And as Miss [music] Petri said, not everybody's cut out to be a law enforcement officer, a crime scene
investigator, a judge, or um or a police officer. Uh but we give them an opportunity to find where they fit best. Um and we also teach them, and I think my colleagues would agree, we also recognize it isn't for everyone. So, one of the skills they learn too is this is
the skill set you'll need, but if you don't have that, let's find you something that is going to work for you. So, we recognize too that not every student is cut out to do this. uh because not everybody as we probably could all attest um not everybody can do this job either right and so we kind of share that with the students and help
them find other things and sometimes we cross transfer our students you know we say you know if this isn't for you why don't you try EMT why don't you try firefighting why don't you try first response like that might work best for you so [music] that's what we do in our program and we give the students an opportunity to figure figure it out
>> yeah so this is a great public service opportunity and your contributions to this uh >> yes amazing I am the, believe it or not, uh, newest and hopefully most improvest, not a word, but I like Yeah, we will go with that. Uh, firefighting instructor
at PPHS. Um, I have to say, just starting out coming in here, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I'm like, okay, bunch of teenagers, they're figuring it out. They're figuring out the world. Um, they they want to get hands-on. So, that's
that's like the biggest thing. They're sitting in school all day. They're sitting at a desk, right? They want to get hands- on. They want to get outside, right? So, I'm not just teaching them firefighting operations. Um, I'm also I'm giving them that that motivation, that confidence as well. So, we do uh like Miss Petri said, we do search and
rescue uh operations. We do hose operations. We have we currently have three fire trucks that we have there at the school as well. We provide uh firefighting one certification for our kids that uh do pass throughout the program. We also offer other certifications as well so that they can
they can build their resume. >> Sure. Jump right in after high school or continue [music] down. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I think something important that they said is that we teach kids how to advocate for themselves. Cuz a lot of these kids, like you said, you come in, they're figuring out life. They're [music] figuring themselves out and they may not want to be a police officer or a
firefighter, but we teach them how to say, "Hey, maybe I'm interested in this." And then we can build on [clears throat] those exterships and internships. We have kids that go to hospitals. We have kids that go to the sheriff's office or 911 dispatch. So, we don't just pigeon hole them either. We want to make sure they're successful no matter what they do.
>> So, they get the opportunity to see uh all the different opportunities that they can have. Double up with that word again. Uh moving forward within that type of either uh legal area or in the public service areas. >> Absolutely. I we when we have our and we
host these events throughout the school year, um that's one of the things that we can pride ourselves on. Uh and you mentioned that at the beginning of this, we are the only school in this entire county. So there's 16 high schools that these students could choose from. But if they want this particular type of education, they have to come to our
school. And so that really does set us apart because we have not only the equipment and the spaces, right? So we, you know, what other school is going to have fire trucks and what other school is going to have an ambulance in half cut in half to that students can learn how to work in a bus. Um you know, we
have a courtroom. We've literally have a built court a built-in courtroom. Um we have all of these tools that other other schools just don't have. And so it's not just that we can give them all of these really amazing opportunities, but the
only place they're going to find it is at our school. And when you add that onto [music] the level of dedication and experience that our teachers have, um very few schools have that. all of us in our in our respective programs. I can
speak for my program. Um my coworker is a well both of them are former military both in the Air Force. They've both been law enforcement officers. I was a crime scene investigator for you know over 25 years. So we have not only the education to teach these students. So we
understand pedagogical instruction, but we also have the physical experience of doing this job on a daily basis. We know the [music] ins and outs of what it's like. and we still have connections to our colleagues in the field currently. So these internships and externships
that um Miss BG's been talking about, right? That helps so much because they know that they can come to us and we can say, "Yeah, you got somebody who can help with that?" Yeah, sure do. And we just make a quick phone call and we've got a K-9 coming to our demonstrations. You know, we've got a we've got an EMT
coming to help out. And so we still have these connections to the current field and very few teachers, right, and no disrespect to anybody else, but very few educators still have those connections to the real world to provide that for their students. >> We do have great relationships with the
departments uh in our county, too. So, it's easier for someone when they graduate. They got the experience. They know that they have the experience. Um they know they can give us a call. Hey, uh we're considering this applicant. he's coming from a great program and uh that opens
up more opportunities for them as well. >> Well, and I want to assure our listeners that all of our career technical education programs have advisory members for their programs. So, if they're maybe not just out of field or having that constant tie, we we make sure that they are touching bases on those. Absolutely.
Um, now I understand you have one other event that you have on site that I have not been privy to yet, >> but it's an experience that I think that our listeners would like to hear about where there may have been a I don't know, a tragedy, a happening that happened on disaster. Yeah,
>> disaster day is fun. >> So, I teach the senior first responder class and we um the kids design it. It's their capstone. So from start to finish, they create what's going to happen. And this year, they've decided that the disaster will be a plane crash. Oh my goodness. Um on the football field during a football game, you know, we got
some squish cheerleaders and whatnot, you know. Um but they designed it from start to finish. And last year we had like 40 agencies from the whole area from Bay Flight to local fire and local police departments cuz I like to get our criminal justice kids also involved out there. They're holding the scene and
whatever. So from start to finish, the kids design it. They do the mouage, the makeup on the patients and victims and all that. They take great pride in it and it's usually a disaster, right? I say it's a disaster, but it's supposed to be. So, it's a lot of fun. And it's April 15th if anybody wants to come out.
>> Not the first. Okay, that's good. [laughter] >> So, yeah, definitely you're more than likely they can come out and check in as a visitor and and check it out. So, uh, in addition shadow days and all the other things that this wonderful program and programs do, uh, go down to Panelis Park High School and check out what's
happening there. We thank you all for being here today. >> Thank you for this opportunity. >> We want to thank all of our guests for joining us today and all of you, our listeners, for taking [music] a look inside at Building Tomorrow, finding your why. If you or someone you know would like to share your career and
technical education [music] experiences, please contact me. We hope you'll share our podcast with a friend, add a like, and subscribe so you don't miss our next episode.