CARMICHAEL, CA (MPG) - Rio Americano High School celebrated the opening of its renovated Career Technical Education (CTE) building with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Feb. 7. More than 100 students, staff and community members gathered for the event. 

The renovated building houses the school’s medical sciences and manufacturing pathways. Students from each pathway showcased their work during the event, with students from the medical sciences pathways demonstrating their skills by greeting patients at their reception desk, checking vitals and prepping injections. 

“The medical pathway students now have a space that resembles a hospital, giving students the opportunity to learn essential skills in a real-world setting,” shared Cliff Kelly, principal at Rio Americano High School.

The Medical Assistant pathway is for students who are interested in fields such as medical assistants, EMT, nursing, physician assistants, physicians, x-ray tech, athletic training, physical therapist assistant, physical therapy, kinesiology, nutrition, and other medical related fields. Students will have hands-on-training, such as taking blood pressure, rooming patients, assisting with minor surgery, and/or front office duties. In their senior year, students will be placed in the medical field for on-the-job experience.

Students from the manufacturing pathway showcased a robot they constructed earlier in the year by having it greet and distribute scissors to the ribbon cutters prior to the ceremony. The manufacturing pathway now has a renovated and reconfigured space that previously housed a woodshop and metal shop. An innovation lab has also been added.

Rio Americano Manufacturing Pathway instructor Matt Cole displayed the teaching process in the manufacturing of robots at the CTE Robotics shop.

Students in the highest course of the pathway can elect to be members of the Rio Robotics team, where they get to compete in high-stakes competitions both regionally and nationally.

The renovation project was made possible by voter-approved bond funds. The construction and design team consisted of CORE Construction, Innovation Construction Services and JK Architecture Engineering.

High schools throughout San Juan Unified offer Career Technical Education (CTE) programs to students. These courses provide hands-on, unpaid training that is designed to prepare them for life after graduation with entry-level, marketable skills.

There are former CTE students in our community who are teachers, nurses, dental assistants, lawyers, doctors, accountants, bakers, chefs, entrepreneurs, engineers, computer techs, mechanics, law enforcement officers, vet techs, etc.

Every year, the graduates are surveyed so that CTE is updated on their employment and educational status. To date, nearly all persons responding to a telephone survey have indicated they felt their training in the various CTE programs was good to excellent. Almost nine out of ten people also stated that their CTE training served as an influencing factor in their present work or educational pursuits.

The unemployment rate of CTE graduates has consistently been less than half of the rate of the general population for the same age group.