Career Academy enrollment increases by 70 percent

More Highlands County students are studying a vocation while in high school.

Enrollment at the Career Academy at South Florida Community College jumped 70 percent compared to last year.

Some of the programs are filled to capacity at the academy, which is starting its third year.

The academy's lead teacher, Jennifer Westergom, said enrollment is up from 60 students to 102.

Some programs are always full, she said. That includes allied health (medical assistant), secretarial/administrative assistant and culinary.

This year, automotive service technology is also maxed out.

When a program is full, the student can choose another vocational program or can apply mid-year or the following year, Westergom said.

"We didn't necessarily have to turn kids away," she explained.

A new student in the first week of school could not get into one of those filled programs, but no one was turned away or missed out on their first choice during the initial application.

Seniors also have a new program this year - cosmetology.

It has been offered at SFCC for a while, Westergom noted, but now it's offered to high school seniors.

Senior Alex Nichols believes the academy is more like how a school should be - smaller classes with more intensive courses.

"We only focus on what we actually need, not on all the elective stuff," he said Thursday. "I think the main thing that helps is just how small the classes are. That helped a ton for me last year because we can talk to our teachers; we don't have to wait in a line of 30 people just to talk to them."

Nichols is in the networking support services program.

Science teacher Cheryl Moffat showed her six chemistry students how to perform metric conversions, like from centimeters to kilometers.

"If they don't get this, then they will be lost later on," she said.

Moffat taught at Avon Park High School for eight or nine years before her transfer to the Career Academy last year.

She calls it "teacher heaven."

"My biggest class I think I have, maybe, 16 or 17 kids in it so they get really personal one-on-one attention," she said. "You have to try really, really hard to fail because it is so small we are all over you," making sure assignments are completed and constantly updating parents.

"It's really parent/student/teacher interactive that's what I think makes this work the best," Moffat said.

The Career Academy is open to students in grades 10-12 through an application process. Requirements include a grade point average of 2.0 or higher and a score of Level 2 or higher on the most recent FCAT reading test.