PTECH to be on display at endorsement fair

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Wednesday’s endorsement fair will showcase Snyder High School’s Pathways and Technology for Early College/High School (PTECH) pathways and extracurricular activities that students can be involved in during their high school years.
Jennifer Rosas, Snyder High School’s Work Based Learning Coordinator, said that for the 20-20-21 school year, students will be able to choose from a total of 10 PTECH pathways, up from this year’s five.
The 10 pathways next year will be automotive, health care and therapeutic, law enforcement, renewable energy, teaching and training, plant science, networking systems, programming and software development, oil and gas exploration and production, and welding.
“These will all be available to our incoming ninth graders as options,” Rosas said. “Now, they do not have to pick one of the 10. Those are just the 10 we will have as far as PTECH is concerned. If they feel like what they want to do doesn’t fall into one of those categories, then we still have other options as far as their graduation endorsements are concerned.”
Rosas said that Snyder High School’s goal is to reach all of its students with a pathway and have a PTECH pathway that would engage each student. This year 75 freshmen are involved in one of the five PTECH pathways.
“(Students) are guaranteed, coming through, to have the opportunity to receive either an industry-based certification, a level one or level two certification of some sort, or an associate’s degree,” Rosas said. “Currently, two of our pathways have an associate’s degree that is attainable through (Western Texas College). Some of the others still take WTC classes but will receive certificates of completion, and then two of them are 100 percent in-house.”
The two current pathways with associate’s degrees are teaching and training, which students can use to obtain a teaching certification, and law enforcement.
“The goal is, basically, to have something for everyone so that, if they leave high school and decide that they don’t ever want to go to school again, we have at least given them some sort of skill set,” Rosas said.