Dr. Debora Carrera is passionate about students having opportunities after high school that extend beyond attending traditional two- or four-year colleges.

On Friday, Carrera, Pennsylvania Department of Education executive deputy secretary, toured Carbon Career and Technical Institute in Jim Thorpe, which prides itself on being one of, if not the best, technical schools in the state.

“We’re very excited we can come and visit one of our career and technical education schools,” Carrera said. “Career and technical centers like CCTI ensure that students are ready to take on their future with the skills, knowledge, and work ethic they need to become successful as they enter the workforce, college, or the military. Working with industry professionals while in high school allows students to network, build connections, and gain experience no matter which path to postsecondary success they choose to take.”

CCTI Administrative Director Brent Borzak outlined for Carrera how the school, which currently has 400 students and 85 more on a waitlist, strives to get students ready for the kind of work that can’t be easily outsourced to another country.

“We always say that we’re preparing them for the jobs that build a community,” Borzak said. “They are going to be fixing your car, cutting your hair or building your houses. You can’t send those jobs overseas. You need them in every local neighborhood.”

Not only will those jobs be available, Borzak said, they don’t pay too bad either. He told the story of his secretary’s daughter, who graduated from CCTI after going through the welding program.

“She graduated from Penn Tech and just secured a job in New York probably making close to $100,000 a year,” he said. “She started here and look where she has gone in just a few years.”

Carrera toured various CCTI programs including the carpentry and cosmetology, which, along with culinary arts, are some of the school’s most popular offerings.

One of the most impressive things, she said, is the quality of the school’s equipment. Borzak said CCTI strives to exceed industry standards when looking to purchase the machines and other equipment students will use during training.

“This is what is so great about career and technical education schools,” Carrera said as she watched carpentry students work on a house. “The dropout rates at schools like CCTI are actually less than your traditional public schools, because the students are so engaged. We, at the state level, definitely need to continue and even expand our support for CTE.”

The state’s 2022-23 budget, she added, solidifies Governor Tom Wolf’s commitment to education at all levels with a historic $1.8 billion investment increase. This year’s increase, she said, includes a $6.1 million increase for Career and Technical Education.

While Borzak is thrilled with the direction the school is headed in, there are challenges the educational field faces as a whole. On Friday, he shared some of those with Carrera, including a statewide teacher shortage and the difficulties rural schools have keeping quality employees when they can make more money in neighboring counties.

“In not too long of a time period, we’ve had eight really good staff members take jobs in the Lehigh Valley where they can make $25,000 to $40,000 more doing the same exact thing they were doing here,” Borzak said. “I don’t begrudge them at all for doing what they need to do for their families, but it is very hard for us to compete.”

Carrera said that changing the significant decline in students entering teacher training programs in college starts with how the profession is perceived.

“I think it’s not even always about the money, it’s about students who are going into college seeing the working conditions and all that teachers have to do and put up with and they are saying, you know I don’t want to do that as a career,” she said. “It is the noblest profession, but we don’t always treat it as such. I think how we speak about it is so important.”

After her tour, Carrera ended her visit having a roundtable discussion with a handful of CCTI students. Many of the students told her about the stigma that comes along with attending a career and technical education school such as CCTI.

“Even with how successful this school is becoming, there is so much misinformation out there,” Borzak said. “When parents, counselors and administrators hold on to outdated stereotypes regarding technical education, students are negatively impacted. We still hear it to this day and we’re fighting the good fight.”