Feb 21, 2023

By STEVE VIRGENsvirgen@bakersfield.com 1 of 11 Ridgeview High School student Raquel Carrillo, left, and Independence High School student Marc Herrera work together to control the movements of a robotic arm during their Career & Technical Education Class in the robotics lab of the new CTEC facility on Old River Road. Eliza Green / The Californian Stephen Mears, a teacher at the Career & Technical Education Center, points out some of the robots in the robotics lab classroom. Eliza Green / The Californian Students Isaiah Coughran, left, and Alexa Duran race each other around the robotics lab at the Career & Technical Education Center using two mobile industrial robots, which are designed to transport heavy loads. Eliza Green / The Californian A Boston Dynamics robot, Spot, carries a book throughout the robotics lab while being operated by students in the Career & Technical Education Center class. Eliza Green / The Californian A robotic arm in the robot lab at the Career & Technical Education Center uses a marker to make shapes on the classroom's whiteboard after being automated by students from around Bakersfield in the CTEC robotics class. Eliza Green / The Californian Students Isaiah Coughran, left, and Alexa Duran use their phones to control two mobile industrial robots during their class at the robotics lab at the Career & Technical Education Center on Old River Road. Eliza Green / The Californian Students stand in their classroom at the Career & Technical Education Center on Old River Road as they control various robots in the robotics lab. Eliza Green / The Californian Ridgeview High School student Raquel Carrillo, left, and Independence High School student Marc Herrera smile as they operate a robotic arm together during their Career & Technical Education Class in the robotics lab of the new CTEC facility on Old River Road. Eliza Green / The Californian Ridgeview High School student Raquel Carrillo controls a robotic arm to pick up metal blocks at the robotics lab at the Career & Technical Education Center. Eliza Green / The Californian Stockdale student Timothy Gurevich operates Spot, a Boston Dynamics agile mobile robot, during a Career & Technical Education class in the robotic lab of the Old River Road facility. Eliza Green / The Californian Contributed photo When Stephen Mears talks about his robotics engineering classroom at the Career and Technical Education Center, he usually starts with the multiple types of robots and several 3D printers available for training purposes. Among the robots is the KUKA, the same used for much of Tesla’s production line. It is believed that CTEC is the only place in California that offers KUKA training and certification for high school students. Mears places the same type of importance for the tools as he does for the academic opportunities. Students can earn certifications, college credits, high school credits and even an associate of arts degree at CTEC. February is CTE Month. Educators and school administrators across the country are raising awareness of the role that CTE has in preparing students for college and career success. The robotics engineering program at CTEC is an example of what is offered for students in the Kern High School District. “Everybody working here at the Career and Technical Education Center, from our administration team to our offices, has a vision for the future,” said Mears, a CTEC instructor who also teaches at Bakersfield College. “We all have the main goal to innovate new ideas for education that will also impact the future of the workforce. It’s really nice to work in an environment that has that understanding.” For the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, the future is now and that means connecting with middle school students about CTE. Kierstin Webb, director of college and career programs for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office, said she feels strongly about making middle schoolers aware of what is available to them in regard to CTE so they’re prepared when they get to high school. It’s best to start planning now for middle school students, she said. “We’ve done quite a bit of research in our office and have found that this process of occupational identity begins in middle school,” Webb said. “So having those conversations and starting those conversations I think are crucial to a student’s success.” Webb said this year is a piloting phase when it comes to creating CTE opportunities for middle school students. For now, it’s about making a plan. Yes, a career plan. Next year, KCSOS will offer five-hour workshops to all middle schools in Kern County, Webb said. At the workshops, the students and parents can gain awareness about CTE and career exploration. “We have created a curriculum that can step right into a middle school, that teaches students their aptitude and finding what they’re good at and connecting that to a pathway in Kern County that leads to higher education or into a career,” Webb said. “We’ve been working to create alignment from middle school to college completion. We believe it begins in middle school and to be quite honest I think it begins earlier.” Webb is excited about the opportunities to map out pathways for middle school students so that they are better prepared for high school and beyond. Just this past year, KCSOS developed a website, ihaveaplankern.org , to help students (including middle schoolers) and parents to make a career education plan and discover what is available at Kern County high schools. Webb said the offerings and pathways are “robust.” Kern County offers career education programs in 15 industry sectors and nearly 60 specific pathways so students can focus on an area of interest, Webb said. Students can make plans for careers in areas such as agriculture, construction, business, public service and robotics, among many more. This year, Webb and the KCSOS have been promoting the message of planning ahead and increased their efforts this month. But it won’t stop when February ends. KCSOS will host an expo for east Kern County schools on March 3 at the Mojave Air and Space Port. Students must attend with their schools, Webb said. In April, KCSOS will be at the CTEC Career and STEM Expo. There are many CTE offerings for Kern County students because the schools have partnerships that are strong, including connections with Bakersfield College, Cal State Bakersfield and several local businesses. “It’s a great system that has the potential to benefit students tremendously,” Webb said. “It’s a pretty incredible system. They can take their skills and use them wherever they want to go." Students can be hired right away or continue with college, she added. Marc Herrera, a 16-year-old junior at Independence High, is on the pathway to earn an associate degree in industrial automation when he graduates from high school next year because he is gaining dual enrollment credits for Bakersfield College. Herrera said he's been provided many opportunities because of enrolling in the robotics engineering program at CTEC. "I didn’t think it would be interesting or fun at all but after the first week I was like: 'This is going to be very fun,'" Herrera said. "It’s amazing." Mears said he enjoys making the class fun by sometimes adding music or providing students with many relevant lessons or modern technology, such as KUKA robots, or dog-like robots from Boston Dynamics. This school year, the CTEC students have gone on field trips to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and the Garner Holt education center in Redlands. Garner Holt is a manufacturer of theme park animatronics. Alexa Duran, a 17-year-old senior at Golden Valley High, said she is grateful to be in the CTEC robotics engineering program. She aspires to be an aerospace engineer, but she said she wanted to take the opportunities the program has to offer. "To be honest, it's the people," Duran said of what she likes about the program. "Plus it's the fact that I’m able to take in so much learning and I was lucky to have this opportunity to be one of the lucky few to get put into this class." 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