Did your school offer vocational and/or shop classes? Things like auto body repair, woodshop, metalshop, or even just offer credits to work part time during school hours? ROP and CTE are common acronyms you may be familiar with for these types of programs.
If your school did offer these types of things and you wouldn’t mind adding additional context, please include things like school size, rural/suburban/urban and what state you were in. I would also love to hear what specific classes your school offered
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My own personal example that wouldn’t fit in the character limit – Graduated from a suburban/urban area in the 2005-2010 range in southern California. My school offered woodshop and metalshop on campus and had various other classes that were eligible for RoP credits that were off campus. Student body at my school was between 3500-4000 and we had many other similarly sized schoolsnin our area/district. We offered auto repair and had internships available with the local electricians union. There was also the ability to work and earn credits through the RoP program if you had a job willing to participate in the program.
Yep, small town Idaho, we had shop classes.
I graduated 20 years ago and no. but I went to a small urban magnet-only school.
“Only” 19 years for me but no vocational training. We did have a woodshop class available as an elective but it didn’t offer any sort of job placement or certificates or anything like that.
I think it largely depends on the student body. My high school had a pretty high percentage of graduates go on to four year college, so they kept the shop classes more generally oriented rather than trade oriented.
My high school had the following:
Plus, the ‘Home Economics’ class was mainly for girls to learn how to cook and such. Loved it once a semester when they baked and sold cinnamon rolls. Half the school smelled wonderful.
We had auto shop, but I don’t think we had anything else. I was in a city at a public school in Washington, around 1200 students grades 9-12.
Yes. I grew up in a small town in the south, about 2k students in our high school. They offered woodshop and automotive shop, plus early childhood education, nursing, culinary, and cosmetology programs. I’m don’t think there were any apprenticeship programs or certifications, though.
Yes but only certain schools in the district had the facilities so you had to transfer if yours didn’t have a program. There was a mechanic, early child teaching and beauty school program as well as work study for junior/senior years where you attended school until noon and then went to whatever work/trade program you attended. The one I graduated had the most programs in one school.
I graduated in 2006 and my school offered woodshop, metal shop, and CAD classes, plus something roughly equivalent to home ec where they taught cooking/baking, basic accounting /checkbook balancing, and even child care. They gave students those fake babies to take care of for like a week.
Each type of class was open to either gender, but shop classes were almost all male and home ec was like 80% female, 10% guys that saw the usefulness of the class, and 10% guys who thought it would be a great time being in a heavily female class.
My school was rural bordering on suburban at that time but is now much more suburban than it was 20 years ago. Town of like 10k at the time I was there. Now it’s like 15k and surrounding towns have grown. School district covers a couple neighboring towns too.
In junior high school in Illinois, we had to take an industrial arts class (woodworking) that was mandatory. Had about 125 students per grade year. I don’t recall an auto body shop/repair class in my high school.
We had a shop class. I think I was the only one that took it seriously, so the teacher let me do whatever I wanted. Taught myself how to MIG/Stick weld while the rest of the class was learning how a hand saw worked.
Suburban school early 2000s. We had wood shop, drafting/screen printing and probably more. There was also an “I am definitely not going to college” track that I think did some cross enrollment to a vocational/technical school.
Yes
We have vocational schools that teach that. You can cover some of that stuff at comprehensive schools, but I believe most vocational schools have contracts with the towns they serve that don’t let comprehensive schools teach the same stuff. Like, they can do some minor overlap, but that’s really the point of the vocational school
We had Woods, Metals, Auto, and Drafting. In junior high we had Woods and Home Economics. Those classes stuck around until their respective teachers retired.
I went to a vo-tech high school, so yes. We were in “shop” half the year all four years. We had drafting, auto body, auto mechanics, electronics, carpentry, electrical, hotel, welding, culinary arts…maybe a couple more. I took drafting.
No but I attended a prep school that was quite proud of 100% college acceptance for our seniors and several students accepted to Ivies every year.
There were vocational high schools specifically for this that you could choose to go to instead of the usual college prep type high school (Massachusetts). Weirdly, when I moved out west, there were fewer of these available.
I went to private school. There was nothing like this.
21 for me, and mine didn’t but there was a bus to a vocational-tech school in the county that did. So you could take your academic classes at your home school and then have state of the art facilities for tech classes.
Graduated in ’99, in a graduating class of 160 students (so perhaps 600-650 total students in the High School). A small city of 17,000 people, in the middle of a mostly rural county.
Our school had a woodshop class, but that’s about the extent of it.
However, our area has a dedicated vocational school (since 1968) that accepts students in 11th and 12th grades from multiple area school districts across three counties, so kids that wanted vocational training could enroll in that school instead of the local high school.
That school offers a broad range of vocational programs; Computer networking, culinary arts, business, cosmetology, electrical, HVAC, welding, robotics, auto tech, diesel tech, firefighting, etc.
School of 2500 students in suburban southern Illinois. I know there were an automotive classes, metal shop, and a construction class that built sheds in the community. There was probably more, but I was in another track and don’t recall.
There were a few different options where I graduated in Oklahoma. Ag classes, shop, etc. What is also common is going to a technical college while you’re still in high school. My nephew did this recently and graduated from high school and received his welding certification around the same time. He’s following up with a CNC machinist course so he’ll have a couple of trades to work with.
20+ years yes my school offered vocational trades. We also had shop class and home ec which i think everyone should take, this mostly includes guys. The amounts of dudes who spend so much on doordash when they don’t have the paycheck to really support it, is alarming.
My sister’s kids go to high school in Oklahoma and are in votech classes half the day. One will be able to test for her cosmetology license when she’s done and the other will be trained in HVAC.
The “regular” high school has woodworking, floral design, basic welding, but nothing that could get you a job.
I live in CT and every kid can choose to go to a tech high school (sometimes choose from multiple tech high schools) at the start of their freshman year. They are based throughout the state and cover regions, so everyone has the option to apply (you have to meet the requirements for grades/behavior and sometimes there’s a lottery system if too many kids are interested).
The regular high schools have some basic tech classes but again, nothing detailed enough to give you the experience to get a job
Yes, but we also had a separate technical high school for kids who wanted to go into trades.
lol…no. They should have. I went to boarding school in the midwest.
Graduated in 1998.
Shop existed but it was ‘art for boys’ – there’s really no vocational aspect to it (I mean, hand-making furniture isn’t a career in the 90s, it’s a hobby), you learned to use power tools and build stuff with wood.
The 2 subjects with vocational potential were drafting/CAD and computer-science (which started with BASIC & then went-on to cover Pascal (because that’s what the AP test used – it switched to C++ in 1999) and assembly-language if you took the higher-level semesters) – albeit in both cases it was more about figuring out whether you wanted to be an engineer or programmer before you applied for college.
This was a suburban school in Wisconsin. 95% of the graduating class went on to at least attempt a bachelor’s degree – and almost all of them succeeded.
Yes, but if I remember right we would start in junior high and then if people wanted to get really advanced with it or expected that would be their career path they could transfer to a vocational high school between the start of high school and the start of their junior year.
I graduated from a suburban public high school in PA in 2000.
When I was in middle school, all kids had shop classes for part of the year. It just covered some basics of drafting, woodworking, and metal shop.
In high school, we had a full-fledged vo-tech program. The kids in that program spent most of their day in a different school dedicated to teaching career skills. I couldn’t tell you the details since I wasn’t in that program and didn’t see much of the kids that were. But, the school is still around and their web site says that they take kids from 11 different public schools. The perception at the time was that it was a program for kids that were too dumb for regular school. But, in retrospect, those kids were probably pretty smart to be learning a trade.
late 00s and to some degree. There was an auto body class and I actually donated a car a couple years ago that was near done. I don’t think they had shop or metal working. I took a networking class but they filled fast.
Yes graduation was in 1999 and only the “Loosers”were in those classes aside from me and I was not accepted.
I graduated in 1998. Went to a highly rated public school. Decent size, with over 300 in graduating class.
We had “vo-tech” classes. I took childcare. I know they had “shop”. Not sure what it was, maybe working on car type stuff. There may have been others.
Anyway yes we had it.
Graduated 8 years ago.
We had a 3D printing class, but that’s as close as we had.
I graduated 5 years ago, and we had an automotive program that even offered a couple base level ASE certs (I got one for operating a 4 post lift, for example).
We also had similar programs for manufacturing engineering and robotics.
There were also some AG classes, although I was/am less familiar with how that program was setup outside of being complementary to FFA.
My high school had a shop class, computer programming courses, food and hospitality courses, early childhood education courses, and business courses. (Suburban) Every high school in my county also had these programs.
The high school down the street from my old house was a vocational school. They had programs for every trade. (Suburban)
There was another high school in the rural part of my home county that had an agricultural program. (Rural)
Graduated 1986. About 600 students in my class (>1500 in my high school). A suburban high school in a blue collar area. (Think: beer drinkers with Harley Davidson t-shirts.) They offered vocational courses (plumber, electrician, etc) but only for boys, unfortunately.
For the most part, my HS education was crap. Lots of pervert/pedo teachers who couldn’t actually teach. No real guidance from guidance counselors. Our parents (Silent Gen) had no post-HS education and provided no guidance. I’m lucky I made it out of that town and made something of myself. Most students didn’t.
I graduated in 2010. In middle school, 6th through 8th grade, we were required to take a marking period each of cooking, sewing, wood shop, and metal shop. In high school, it was offered but not required. There is a public technical high school that you can apply to that draws students from several districts in our part of the County. I live in suburban Philadelphia and went to a relatively large school district with my high school having ~2800 students
Massachusetts, graduated high school 1981.
We had wood shop and automotive shop. There was also home economics courses, with dedicated rooms for sewing and cooking. Both genders took both wood shop and home ec. classes.
Our high school was just under 500 students in a rural community, but with some aspects of suburbia. It was primarily college prep. Public schools in MA are pretty good.
There was also a regional technical high school in our town, for the surrounding 9 towns. This caused our regular high school to have a slightly smaller population. The regional tech schools in MA are pretty good, and students end up doing well in the trades and culinary, boat building and repair, etc etc. They still have to learn most normal school subjects, but they also have tech classes and shops every day.
Mid 2000s, suburban area of VA. My county had a dedicated votech building with programs for auto repair, cosmetology, carpentry, HVAC, and Fire/EMS.
Almost 20, and yes, we had vocational classes. Now kids can go to the vocational school in addition to high school.
Yes. The main school had a wood shop, sewing classes, business classes where you learned about marketing and accounting, and cooking classes, all available as electives. If you wanted to learn a trade in-depth, there was a partnership with the county technical school where you would have your core classes (English, math, science, social studies) in the morning, and take a bus to the technical campus in the afternoon. I knew people who trained to be hairdressers and electricians through that option. I went to a big, well-funded public school in the suburbs in Missouri.
My small rural school didn’t have to offer these things on campus because my state has a program called BOCES.
>In 1948, the New York State legislature created Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) to provide shared educational programs and services to school districts within the state.
BOCES students would leave school around 11 or 12 and get on a bus to the BOCES campus for vocational training.
https://www.boces.org/about-boces/
I took a wood shop class in high school and loved it! I made a really nice bedside table, among other things. I also took a sewing class and made mittens, skirts, pillowcases.
I was so bummed that I never got to take the women and automobiles course. They required like 15 people sign up, and I got like 12 friends, but it wasn’t enough :/
I don’t think there was a credit system for working at a shop.
My school is very big, ~800 students per class, suburban in MN. I attended 2010-14.
Yes we had shop classes. Industrial tech, metal working, and woodworking. Very much project based and the advanced classes were basically the instructor was there to help if you needed it.
Yep we had welding, nursing, auto classes, shop wood work an construction, drafting.
Graduated 1996
Yes, we had vocational.
You could do morning block or afternoon block. Students were bussed there from 1 of the 4 County schools. Seniors could drive.
Autobody, cosmetology, welding, machine shop. I don’t know everything, because I never attended.
I’m rural. Tn. K-12 with about 800 students back then.
Pre-k – 12 now, but only about 600 students.
We still have it in the local county.
My son attends Culinary arts this year.
Yes, but it was a technical high school so that was it’s whole thing.
Yes but they were looked down on.
Yes. Graduated in 2016, pretty large upper middle class suburban high school. We had a whole auxiliary building that housed the autoshop and woodshop classes, as well as a robotics workshop. Kids who went deep into the auto classes could intern at local body shops. We also had a restaurant management class that partnered with various local businesses and a criminal justice course that had kids do internships at the courthouse and local law offices. Seniors could also leave two periods early for a semester to do local internships in various fields for class credits.
I graduated in 2016 and my high school had “pathways”. There was one for engineering, audio/video technology, computer science, business management, healthcare, and culinary arts. School size was about 1800 in the suburbs.
We had a welding class at the community college. Graduated in 2010, several guys I graduated with are welders now.
My area has a dedicated technical high school. We had auto stuff, welding, machinist, hair dressers, medical, plumbing, etc. I went there and graduated from welding. Coming up on 5 years at a steel fabrication shop
I graduated 12 years ago, we had a vocational school that was its own entity under the school board. The entire county school system could send students there to learn all kinds of trades. I took 2 years of auto mechanics there.
Available courses were: auto mechanics, auto body, welding, construction, electrician, culinary, drafting & design, cosmetology, and ROTC. Might’ve been some more but these are the ones that I remember.
Yes – super rural small school, sent us to the next town over for vocational classes. I did dental assisting. But CNA and cosmetology were popular then too
No. I went to two schools neither of which had shop or vocational training but they were both unusual private schools so that might be a factor.
I graduated in 2011. At my school, you could opt to go to a local trade school in lieu of electives and we did have a wood shop class, but no auto or home ec. I went to a medium sized school in a beach town with a heavy military presence, so lots of kids of service members.
They had auto shop, horticultural classes, and animal science classes.
Almost 50 years ago junior high had home economics for girls and shop for boys. My kids junior high (which was about 20 years ago )did away with shop/home ec and added keyboarding and computer lab- I think that was a mistake.
My high school had an excellent vocational program which is still going strong and has expanded regionally- https://www.jelcc.com/
No. There was a county vocational school for that kind of stuff if you wanted to go there.
Yes. Just went to my 20 year reunion. Inner city very large school. We had a separate building across the street that housed the Votech program. There was culinary, auto, cosmetology, and construction. It was a separate building but you could take classes in both buildings, you just had to walk down the block. They redid the school recently and moved the programs into the main building, but they still exist. My ex-husband did culinary and won all sorts of awards and competitions. He even got into the Culinary Institute of America before he decided he hated working in kitchens.
Yes, I graduated in 2012. There was a program where kids could do co-op and training. They had a bus that would take you to the career technical center, and it would count as a class credit. There were classes for welding, cosmetology, CNA training, and agriculture. I don’t know much about the other classes outside of what my friends and siblings did. The local career tech center is partnered with pretty much every school in the county.
My school zone is a suburban/semi-rural area with 2,500 (now almost 3,000) students in Alabama.
13 years ago, and yes. This was a suburban school with 2,000 ~2,500 kids.
We had a wood shop class at the school. BUT if you wanted to, you could do a school district program, and you could get college credit, certifications, and/or licensing for a variety of vocations. The ones I remember were criminal justice, and you could get a security guard license. Beauty school, salon tech, and auto repair. I can’t remember if there were other options.
Graduated in 2008 from a small rural school. We had elective shop classes based in our school. I think there was a small engines and a welding class. I’m sure there were more but I wasn’t interested in those types of things so I didn’t pay close attention to what was offered. A few years after I graduated they built a small barn on campus for FFA and Ag classes to use. Most of those classes were taken by the farm kids, since it was things they already did at home so it was an easy grade for them.
There was also a program where they would bus kids to an off site facility for half a day. They had cosmetology, culinary and auto repairs programs that were offered there.
Yes, but they had to take a bus to a different campus. This was late 90s, early 00’s.
U graduated almost 30 years ago but decades of cuts in the LAUSD left us with nothing. We had woodshop but that was it. Heck the “computer lab” had computers almost as old as I was at the time. It was a joke.
NJ class of 09
No vocational classes that I was aware off. We had a pretty robust visual and performing arts program though. We also had financial and engineering classes a student could “major” in
In 2005 we had woodshop, auto, graphic design, home economics, childcare… I think that’s about it for what could be considered “vocational”. I lived in a super small town with a graduating class under 150 students. If you wanted more intensive training or more choices there was always the option of going to your districts VoTech highschool.
graduated within the last 5 years, my high school had wood shop and metal shop classes, and there was a CTE half day program shared by all the schools in the county
No, they didn’t, they had already been phased out by then. There was a whole section of the school-the old shop classes, that was just unused/abandoned.
We had woodshop and then you could do like an apprentice at auto body shops and stuff like that.
My school had a guitar building class sponsored by Taylor guitars
Yes. We all had to try woodshop in 7th grade, metalshop in 8th grade, and drafting in 9th grade. We also had other things we were required to try those first few years, like cooking class and sewing class. They also had a vocational and technology program, when you got into the last couple years of high school they would bus kids over to a place where they could get more training in stuff like culinary arts, cosmetology, welding, etc. I was in junior high and high school from ’99-’05 in rural western Pennsylvania.
No. All of those classes/departments were cut by the time I started HS.
Note: Misread the question, and thought it was 20 years or more time frame. Decided to keep it posted because. Dammit, I typed it out.
Graduated in ’91. The school was in Ohio, located in a decent-sized city. About 97% of the district was within the city limits, but since it wasn’t part of the city school system, it was technically considered suburban. The remaining 3% of the district extended into a nearby township, which helped it keep that suburban classification. We had around 2,500 students at the high school, putting it among the top ten largest high schools in the state.
If I remember correctly, the vocational programs offered were: Auto Shop, Auto Body, Heating & Air (HVAC), Machine Shop/Welding, Drafting, Electronics, Carpentry, Cosmetology, Culinary, and some type of Nursing. My freshman year they also had a Print Shop program, but it was discontinued while I was there.
All of these were two-year programs for Juniors and Seniors. Our school days were divided into seven periods, with one of those being lunch. Juniors and Seniors usually took three or four academic classes in the morning, then spent the rest of the day in their vocational program. Senior year, you had the option to get a job in your vocation, and that counted toward your hours. In that case, you could leave school early to go to work.
Most of the programs also offered services to the general public during the school year. You could take your car to the Auto Shop, get your hair cut or styled in Cosmetology, and things like that.
The city school district has its own vocational programs, as did some of the other larger suburban districts. There is also a rural vocational high school that drew students from districts in five counties that were too small to offer vocational training on their own.
We had a VoTech program you could sign up for, there was a dozen or so jobs you could do shadowing or training for during the second half of the school day, i think hairdresser and mechanic were options, local business partnered with the county to offer the spots.
They used to offer wood shop, then a friend of mine chopppwd off two fingers and won a bunch of millions and gone
my school had a shop class for a while, but they did away with it after the shop teacher died. however, some students ( myself included) got sent to OEC ( occupation education center). they offered classes ranging from early childhood development, cosmetology, mechanics, floristry, dentistry, and a few others. it unfortunately was not offered to every student ( mostly those who didn’t want to do P.E.), and the school closed maybe 15 years ago.
Graduated within the last 10 years, my school had a strong vocational program and I know many others in the area were a part of it too. You could choose from a variety of trades as well as small animal science and cosmetology. You’d usually spend half the day doing your vocational studies and half the day doing general high school classes. They’d also try to incorporate some of the core subjects into the vocational half if I remember right, especially for kids who weren’t strong in subjects like math or science, so then for the classes they’d be mixed back in for it could be like music classes or language, etc. Didn’t always work out with scheduling but at least there were some options. The vocational programs were offered in addition to classes like “shop”, home maintenance and repair, CAD, res construction, etc
I’m having trouble parsing “20 years ago or sooner”. Do you mean more than 20 years ago or less than 20 years ago.
Yes, my suburban high school offered vocational training as well as work credit in the early 2000s. Some of them, like automotive service, cosmetology, and dental careers were through a career center in the nearby city. I was never on that track, so I don’t know how the classes worked, but I think generally students were at the high school in the morning and career center in the afternoon. They also partner with other schools in the area to offer some more specialized courses. The current curriculum offers an aviation class through another high school in the county that is closer to a small airport. I believe they have expanded some of the offerings in recent years.
Tiny rural high school: they offered a bus to the community college the next county over for those kinds of courses. I forget the number of students they capped it at, but it was a selective program where those students would spend the afternoon doing those things.
I took woodshop from 8th grade thru high school. It was the only class I enjoyed or cared about, so it was really the only one I tried in. Ended up working construction for about ten years as well.
Smaller private school in mid size town in Northern California. Graduated in 2004, and actually my school no longer exists. It closed several years ago.
2005 grad, we had a shop class, small 58? kids graduating, rural, NY, they didn’t offer many options because it was a small school…
Yes we had a program called BOCES through New York State where students could do vocational training rather than pursue a full Advanced Regents Diploma. Typically they would do a few classes in the morning towards a GED (general education diploma, which is the sort of minimum degree equating to a high school diploma) and then they would get bussed to another school where they would do vocational training for the remainder of the day.
Nope, the closest thing we had were engineering classes where you learned things like CAD and did some hands on engineering things like model bridges but it was definitely white collar engineering focused.
No. The closest things we had were a pottery class and a filmmaking class.
Filmmaking you basically just had to shoot and produce a few videos over the semester (music video, commercial, etc.).
Pottery class was more or less just fucking around. The biggest competition in the class was seeing who could throw a piece of pottery that would be a good bong, but disguise it well enough for the teacher not to notice it and fire it. Had all kinds of tricks to make it happen (thin pieces that you can break off after firing and glazing). Teacher wouldn’t get made, actually secretly encouraged it. First day of class he said something like “Okay everyone, I don’t have many rules in here, I just want you all to practice your sculpting and throwing skills to make yourselves cool pieces. You get to take home anything you make, so make something cool! The only real rule I do have is about bongs. The school is really cracking down on me about this because I have let a lot of things slide in the past. I get it. They’re cool, they’re fun, and a lot of times they can be really good. But I don’t want to lose my job and they’re getting really angry about it. So if you do throw a bong, just don’t make it obvious or something. If it is obvious, they told me I have to destroy it. So get creative.”
One time a kid made this HUGE beautiful “vase”. It was thrown in three different pieces and all stacked together. it was very obviously a bong, but my teacher said something like “Okay this is too good and cool to not fire, but it’s obviously not a “vase”. Here, use a little bit of clay and slip to cover this hole here (down stem hole). Try to blend it smooth so it doesn’t look out of place. I’ll fire it and you can just punch that hole out later.”
Nope, but I went to a small all girls school (600 students for 6 grades). We barely had science classes
I graduated more than 40 years ago. Yes, we had vocational school. We also had building trades. The kids in this program built a house every year. Vocational school still exists. They no longer do building trades.
Our county has vocational centers that the high school students can attend for elective credits. They teach things like welding, auto body repair, cosmetology, carpentry, electricity, CDL training, machine tooling, culinary arts, sports medicine, nursing aids, firefighting, police training, etc. Many of them lead to professional certifications. They’ve been around as long as I can remember.
Yes there is one school in every county for kids interested in vocational training
I graduated in 2007 from a public high school in Central Virginia. No vocational training at the school itself. There was a separate vocational school where you could go for part of the day. They offered courses like CNA, cosmetology, and carpentry.
I would have graduated in 05 but dropped out but yes, we had Auto shop, wood shop, metal shop, and cisco networking for some reason.
Yes
My school offered a vocational training program in junior and senior year. You’d have morning classes like normal and the get bussed to a vocational training center. All public schools in my county did it (probably 20+ high schools).
Yes. I graduated from a Texas high school in 1987. Today that town has a population of 10k, but the ISD also serves some of the barely incorporated towns around it. The current school student body is about 900, which sounds about the same as when I attended. I took Agriculture. And we had auto body as well. (both ag and auto body were out in the ‘barns’ on the edge of school) A quick check lets me know that the auto body and ag classes are still offered.
My school had auto shop, wood shop, electronics, law enforcement, and cosmetology classes. Some of those, like cosmetology and I think law enforcement, were ROP and had adult students as well. There were electives for drafting, journalism, psych/ sociology, and cooking, as well as the arts. We also had a big FFA program. I went to rural/suburban combo school in the northern California foothills with around 1700 students when I graduated.
I graduated 15 years ago. The first 2 years of highschool I was in a fairly large suburban school in the Manhattan tristate area, and they had a welding class as an elective. Junior year I transferred to a Catholic school and there was nothing like that
Graduated over 40 years ago from a suburban school in Tennessee. Our vocational program included ornamental horticulture, auto mechanics, computer coding, nursing (CNA), cosmetology, a graphics program, drafting, and definitely shop. It was a wealthy high school, most of us headed to college. I feel like I hit the honey spot of public education
I graduated in 2010. My high school had auto shop, metal shop, wood shop, architecture, and A/V studio electives and classes but no official vocational program.
Yes, and I took it for a semester.
I don’t fit those parameters, but my kids are teens and their school offers a shop class that teaches both woodworking and welding, and agriculture mechanics class, various other agriculture classes, drafting, and possibly others. We are a small school in a rural community. I think there is also a program/class for the seniors that allows an exploration of the trades in which they go off campus and learn about a variety of trades.
I graduated 20 years ago and no. We had a public, county-wide votech high school that students could attend to fulfil state graduation requirements while learning a trade like HVAC, auto tech, cosmetology, and health care occupations. It still exists and offers a large variety of programs and coordinates apprenticeships, and I believe it also has a performing arts program for students already employed in dance troupes, theatre productions, and television/film. It’s not easy to get into and has pretty high standards to stay in the program. I knew a few people who got into the votech, failed classes or played hookie too much, were transferred to mainstream public high school, and ended up dropping out altogether.
This was in a largely suburban county with some semi-rural areas.
ETA: I will mention that my high school offered vocational courses but you weren’t in a votech program if you were attending the mainstream high school. I took some tech courses and we had things like woodshop and metal shop. You would take these as electives, and the school didn’t coordinate any apprenticeships or work-study programs as a result.
I graduated in 2005. I went to a suburban school in Michigan with probably around 500 students.
We did have what you call vocational training, though we called it industrial arts. I never took any, so I’m not 100% sure what all was available. However, I do recall we had autoshop, woodworking, and AutoCAD classes. Additionally, students could take classes at an off campus technical center with a greater variety of classes for credit. I had friends that took nursing, cooking, and cosmetology classes there.
We had woodshop and some variety of metalworking, but nothing to the level of auto repair or carpentry. There was a vocational school which taught those subjects.
State is in my flair, and we did do vocational classes. Small town, K-12, mostly a farming and ranching town and by small, I mean SMALL. My graduating class was 33 kids, and we were biggest school for about 80 miles in every direction. Our vocational classes were Ag-Tech 1 through 4, Construction, Woodworking, Welding, CAD, and a couple others. I took all of them because I didn’t want to take classes like calculus or physics.
Ag-Tech 1 and 2 was mostly learning types of wild grass, breeds of farm animals, and running the school’s greenhouse (the greenhouse was like a flower and garden shop, which the revenue went to the school’s FFA program). Ag-Tech 3 and 4 was mostly engines, machinery, basic construction things, and some general shop stuff. For the second semester of AT4, we were able to do any project we wanted, and I built an off-road go-kart by welding the chassis from square steel tubing and buying the wheels, engine, brakes, and sprockets from Harbor Freight. It was seriously fun as hell. I also at some point made a subwoofer box for the upgraded sound system I put in my pickup, but I don’t remember exactly which year it was.
Construction was learning electrical wiring, framing walls, siding, roofing, and building sheds. People would commission sheds for their back yard or whatever and we’d build them as if building a small house. There’s a shed in town square that I built with a few classmates. We’re still proud of it to this day.
Woodworking was actually a required class, so all students took it. It was mostly basic hand-tools stuff. Planers, dado joints with chisels, hand-sanding, etc.
Welding was… well, welding. We learned Arc and MIG welding. The school didn’t have any TIG machines so we couldn’t learn that hands-on. But we still learned some things by watching videos.
CAD was learning using computer software to design parts for machinery. My final exam for CAD 4 senior year was designing folding landing gear for a plane. We never actually made it like they do in college engineering courses, just the computer aided design part of it.
20 years ago we had wood shop and metal shop as optional classes but there was a special vocational high school students could opt to attend instead of the local public high school where they’d leave school with a certified trade. The vocational school had students from a bunch of neighboring school districts and students who went there received a high school diploma from their home high school and their vocational certification from the vocational school.
Now the vocational school still works the same but there are way less shop and vocational classes available at our public high school starting about 15 years ago when the old shop teacher retired and the district chose to just have the shop teacher at the Middle School split time between the Middle & High School instead of hiring a new shop teacher.
I graduated in 1985. I went to a normal run of the mill high school, not a vo-tech one. My graduating class was about 300 students. We were in a middle class suburban town.
We had auto shop, metal shop, graphic design classes, woodworking, all those kinds of things as electives. I can’t tell you any details because I didn’t choose any of those classes.
12 years ago small public school and yes. Auto, electric, culinary, sewing, business etc and we did on the job training senior year.
Yup. Rural school in nys, graduated 150 kids. A small percentage would do the vocational programs. For half of the day junior and senior year, they would go to a different location where they could learn their chosen trade. The options i remeber were auto shop, welding, cosmotology, and i think food service? It was pretty much all kids who struggled academically and wanted to get out of normal classes. They had very different graduation requirements.
Yes. I graduated in mid-80s and you could learn all kind of vocations at the local community college. I didn’t partake as i was an intellectual but all those things were available. Metal shop, carpentry, cutting hair, etc. My school was just on the outskirts of a major city.
No, but our county has a highly rated vocational technical school. Goes beyond trades and cooking.
My school did. Graduated in 2017 from a high school in MA. A little under 1000 students in a small city. It offered auto, culinary, child development, and the fourth one was either electrical or shop (we had both just can’t remember which was an elective and which was part of the vocation program). If you wanted to do the program you’d cycle through all four freshman year then pick one to do for the next three years. It just counted as an elective class though so you’d only be there for one class period. We also had a vocational high school you could apply to go to instead of going to the public one.
I graduated in 2004. My school didn’t have it, but my country did and any student within the county could attend either full time or part time. I grew up in a suburb of a major (top 10 in population) city.
They sure did.
Yes. Welding, mechanical repair, there may have been others. But we were a school with a large rural population, and lots of farmers and blue collar jobs. Graduated in 95.
I took welding…turning pennies into fluff was fun!
I graduated in the mid 1980s from a Catholic school. No shop classes.
The public school up the road offered all of those vocational programs you mentioned.
Oldest kid graduated in ’24 and took a bunch of auto classes in high school. We’re a rural/suburban interface school with about 1600 students. It’s a center for auto work and welding as part of a county wide cooperative. Carpentry and other trades are spread around the other nearby schools. It was genuinely life changing for my kid, they weren’t a superstar student academically, but they’re great with their hands. They took an auto class on a whim junior year and found a career.
They had some although the best were ROP programs where you often had to go to a different school.
We didn’t have many electives due to cuts if you were on the college track. And the auto, wood and metal shop were downright dangerous in the lack of supervision during my time.
Took metal shop in junior high and it was excellent and I still use some of what I learned. Also took ROP drafting as a senior and that too taught skills I still use today.
The HS my kids went to have excellent programs and the local CC actually taught welding and some other classes there until their new buildings were done. I was surprised to see not only manual machine tools but also CNC machines in the metalworking classrooms. Learned how to TIG, MiG, stick, and braze in that class and was impressed. We have local national labs nearby and I suspect they help fund some of it.
No, but I went a college prep oriented Catholic HS. Husband’s exhurb public school did. Early 90s.
Yep
No, college was presented as the only real option at my school. I went to a private school and graduated in 2016.
Yes, class of ’80
Suburban community.
They offered:
shop: electrical, mechanical and plumbing
Woodworking: building with wood and learning to use hand tools
Drivers ed : preparing to get your drivers license and if you had your learners permit actually teaching you to drive.
Home economics: learning cooking, sewing and other “domestic chores”
JROTC program: for those interested in a military career.
Th we were offered to all high school students. On top of the these classes our school also offered vo-tech.
In vo-tech a student would attend half the day at regular high school classes then be bussed to vo-tech school for to be taught one of several trades they had available
Yes. 2000 kid Public high school in the suburbs. They had individual woodshop and cooking/baking classes you could take. They also had a program where you went to a Votech school for half the day.
We also had a child development program with a student led preschool for the community (teacher supervised).
There was even a program where you could earn your Associates Degree for free (2 year college degree) while still in high school.
Graduated from a Catholic prep school 25 years ago. No vocational classes whatsoever. I think they started a Computer Science class after I graduated, though.
Nope. None of those
Our county did and still does offer a vocational training school. After 10th grade you can either stay at your high school or go to the vocational school. You are bussed there from your local school district. At that vocational school you take the classes you need to graduate AND study a training program. The one in my county offers everything from cosmetology to HVAC to Fire/EMT training. 27 different programs currently. When the student graduates they get a high school diploma and are ready to take any tests for licensing in their chosen field. One of my best friends took co9smetology and she took her license exam right after graduation since she got all the train and hours she needed in the vocational school.
IDK if all Ohio counties have county schools like this but the three counties I am closest to do.
I was offered to take college courses at a local community college for free as part of an advanced placement program. In addition to high school credits, I earned credits that went towards my degree once I started it a little later in life.
Probably, but I lacked the skills or interests to learn more.
Lots of kids who were delinquent adjacent had classes where they fixed cars or did other industrial things.
My Freshman year shop class had an older kid who was probably on the spectrum. He had exhausted all the shop class options, so he lots of self-directed projects. He ended up working in the local lumber yard.
I went to school with about 1600 kids 23 years ago in MA. My school offered home ec and woodshop as electives. There was a full regional voc high school that offered programs like car repair and welding (and others).
My husband went to high school in OK to a voc high school. He did some sort of science/tech program.
I graduated in 2001. My middle school offered woodshop as an elective and high school had an automotive repair program.
Yes.
We had a construction tech track and an auto body track.
Yes. They called it ROP in the 80s. Pretty sure it’s still around in some form.
I’m 1 year outside your range, but my first high school, Springfield High School did. My second high school, Sheldon High School, did not.
Graduated in 2007 yes my hs had vocational training.
Yes, but limited in just my school. Went to a school of about 350 students. We had basic woods and metals in our building For other programs, the smaller schools in our county worked together on what was called dual enrollment, where students who wanted to take a specific career tech class could go to another school. One school had a class called building trades which was basically beginning an apprenticeship as a carpenter, plumber or electrician. Another had auto shop which if you went through all four years would make you a certified auto mechanic. My school provided nursing classes, which allowed you to become a CNA when you graduated or add to your college credits to get you AA or BSN. You could also go to the local community college’s tech ed for training which was for CnC machining or other specialized programs. We were also pretty academic as well (I had three National Merit Finalists in my class of 81). A local university had a math and science center for students that provided college level math and science courses. We also could take college classes at the local community college which transferred credit when you went to college.
Yes. We had car repair, motorcycle repair, I took a year of residential electricity, a year of drafting, CAD, wood shop, metal shop, we had a sheet metal press, I took some class where I had to use a soldering iron, we wired breadboard circuits. I also took programming only because the computer lab was the only air conditioned room in the building. Later became a software engineer.
SoCal suburban HS about 50 miles east of LA. We had ROP but no real infrastructure that supported wood/metal shop or anything else beyond “business” classes.
My uncle was an administrator at one of the largest HSs in LA and they had a full on mechanics shop and culinary program for people to learn.
Yes. Vo-tech classes were at a separate school that was shared with two other districts. I’d spend half a day at one school, then take a bus to the other.
Class of ’04.
My school had a whole vocational center, but we were in SE Michigan, a traditional industrial area.
Yes
No
I went to a NYC school 20 years ago but with a focus on math and science. We had a couple classes you could take (there was a shop class) but I think it was more general knowledge rather than focused on trades. At the time it was one of the higher ranked schools in the city, so they pushed people more toward 4 year universities. Probably a separate vocational school would’ve been the better choice for someone wanting that.
Mine did. But I graduated 45 years ago. They phased them out my old HS around 40 years ago. I took blueprint reading, typing, metal working, woodworking, small engine repair, auto repay and cooking plus drivers ed.
My high school son is currently in a Construction class for his elective. This is in a small city, in a school of 1000 students. They have the opportunity to get some kind of certificate for home construction. I don’t think he has an interest in this for a career; he is probably going to pursue something more academic, but it’s great to get some skills with hand tools just for everyday life.
There is a community college just a few blocks from the high school, so the high school partners with them to allow students to have dual enrollment for all kinds of trades: welding, machining, etc.
Yes, all of those. Yes, half day for working upperclassmen.
Also, partnership with the county vocational school for more involved training in Auto repair, woodworking, metal shop, Dental technician, cosmetology, computer aided design, and dozens of other trades. Vocational students spent half the day at the high school and the second half of the day at the vocational school taking trade specific courses.
New Jersey. Suburban
graduated high school two years ago and no. but, some High schools did
My HS was in a town of about 20k people and next to a city with about 65k people. We had a partnership with a vocational school that had auto repair, HVAC, general construction and a few others. At midday they would ride a bus over to tge neighboring city.
You needed parental sign off to do it instead of electives. I wanted to do auto work. My mom though those programs were for people who dony go to college and I needed to do electives. So I missed out. Now im a trade worker making over 100k a year anyway. Found a decent apprenticeship. A head start in HS would have helped.
I’m a mainer.
Yes! I graduated in ‘93 and there were some vocational training classes. I don’t know much about them because I was more of a college track guy. My kids go to the same school though and the vocational things they have now are mind blowing. The school is very much in partnership with the manufacturer’s alliance and other workforce development orgs. You can graduate as a certified mechanic, nursing assistant, get a culinary degree, and who knows what else. It’s very cool.
Smallish town in Utah and graduated in 2002, we had technical classes like shop or engine repair. But we so had a trade school in town and students could take classes there. I took 2 semesters of “building trades” for my tech credits. I know some girls took cosmetology classes. That kind of stuff.
I graduated outside that range but I can say my HS still has shop classes. My county also has a vocational school too that’s basically a high school that teaches you enough to graduate while also teaching a vocation like auto repair, welding, auto body, construction, etc. friend of mine went there and owns his own shop these days.
Graduated from a smallish city in the midwest in 2010 and we had woodshop, autoshop, homec, and something called life skills. We also had a work program that let you out early for work with credits. I think all were elective.
Mine did. Our student body had sizable populations both of college-bound kids and those who wanted to get into trades. We had a building trades course, auto repair, metal working, etc., along with a slew of AP courses.
I’m right at 20ish years. Yes. They weren’t at the school. People bussed to a local college.
High school had a shop class, and we could bus to the vocational/technical school, I was in automotive technology for a year. We were rural, in Missouri, and the high school was around 450 students. The vo/tech school was about a 45 min drive away.
Mine offered those classes, but you had to leave campus to do them, and provide your own transportation, and if you were late coming back, you’d be marked tardy. I had a friend try to do it, but because he had ten minutes to walk to his car, drive back, park, and get to class, he was tardy too many times and had to stop going
Absolutely. 1200 kids in my school. Lots of shop and tech classes.
I graduated almost 30 years ago and we had 3 CTC’s (Career and Technology Centers) in our county that offered all of those training programs for high school students in all of our public schools. Today, those three CTC’s are still up and running in our county. The school districts bus the students there for half the school day.
There was a separate school called the career center where you could learn a trade. It was frowned upon back then and kids who went there were often thought of as lesser than the college prep kids.
Turns out, those kids got to enter the workforce at 18 with no debt, fully trained, and are now making low 6 figures because that stuff is always in demand and less affected by ai.
Where I live, the high schools don’t offer directly on campus, but all partner with vocational schools in the area to offer the option to high school students via an alt location program.
My school was in the capital city of a small state with poor state education funding but good local funding. I graduated mid 2010s. We had shop classes with a pretty good variety but they were all off campus so you had to spend two class slots for them which I think puts you at a disadvantage if you want to take more classes from another subject or classes with fewer offerings per day like some ap classes. It also I think fostered a better sense of community and allowed the shop center to have better equipment and class offerings because they served multiple schools.
Pluses and minuses for sure but we did have the classes!
I graduated 16 years ago and yes. There was a votech program where you could even graduate with a certificate. It even had its own building on campus. I don’t know much else about it because I didn’t take it or know anybody who did.
School was suburban, public, ~1500 students, 300-400 per graduating class. Kansas City, Missouri.
VoTech
I graduated 20+ years ago from a Catholic all-male HS. You could take three class periods to go to the local vocational college and learn a trade but no one ever did. The program ended when the KY vocational college program was overhauled, but recently they reintroduced the program. Apparently any student can do it, and an alumni benefactor will cover the cost of tuition for the trade school classes. Sounds like they get 3-5 seniors a year that opt for it, out of about 140. Pretty neat.
My school district had a campus for vocational training. Kids from any high school in the district would be bussed there for half a day if there was a curriculum they wanted to pursue. One of my friends went there for IT courses.
Class of 1993. Yes, specifically I remember a class that built houses and auto repair and cosmetology and business stuff, not sure what else.
I went to a rural high school with about 350 students. My graduating class was under 100. We had drafting, agriculture, woodshop and metal shop classes. One wing of our high school was dedicated to them. I took a drafting class.
Woodshop and drafting were just a single class.
The agriculture program was pretty big, but I think it was mainly due to it being easier. It was a rural school, so we had a lot of people going into ag careers and ag related college programs.
Metals was just a welding class. The ag students took it along with most of the slackers. The welding bays were single occupancy and had big exhaust fans. A lot of people just smoked cigarettes or weed in them, which is why it was a popular class.
Graduated 1990 – Our county had one vocational school that you could choose to be bused to either in the morning or afternoon sessions, replacing a couple of your other classes with automotive stuff, cosmetology, machining, welding or construction.
I just did a quick google, and it looks like it still exists but as an after-school thing instead of a replacement for other classes.
Mine did, but I was taught to associate those programs as “kids who won’t get a degree and make something of themselves”
College was the holy grail above all
Gradated 50 years ago from a small rural school. Students either took academic classes all day or just required math and English in the morning. These students would take the bus to attend a county wide vocational school in the afternoon. I understand most NYS school districts still offer this vocational education option.
No. There were numerous technical schools in the area for high schoolers- our school was next to one. Officially named vocational technical schools, usually known by “school” or “school tech”. Specific high schools also had Ag or “Vo-Ag” Vocational Agriculture programs, though these were public schools with FFA as an option.
Small town texas 15 years ago. Yes, shop and auto shop are classes you can take. Auto shop was focused on tractors and cars.
Shop was focused on carpentry, woodworking and mixed with FFA. Agriculture was a big focus, even though we weren’t a large agricultural area, more cows and some ranches. Crops arent big in our area
Our district had a magnet school for vocational training. A lot of places have it but not everywhere to the same extent or level of options or specialties. It is extremely expensive to run some of the vocational programs. But I think it’s worth it.
My suburban high school of about 2000 students had had a couple of classes like automotive, early childhood education, and culinary. There is also a program in my area called JTED which is after school/evening classes that you could get certifications from in a variety of fields.
I graduated 22 years ago, so slightly longer. We had a shop class, not sure what all they did in there. We also had a health occupations class that shadowed different careers in the health field. We had a “restaurant” that served breakfast for the school.
I went to a school with 900 or so kids in a fairly rural area. In Oregon
I’m from a rural area, my graduating class was like 35ish students lol less than 250 total for grades 7-12. We had shop class in the school, but students who wanted to could opt to go to the vocational school about 30 minutes away for classes.
We had woodshop as a regular class and BOCES which is a program offering vocational/technical training that kids would go to for like half the day. Not 100% sure what trades it was for.
We were a pretty low income school in the suburbs on Long Island (right next to New York City) in the early 2010’s.
Nah, we got bused to the vocational school for part of the day.
Yes, we had options for masonry, electronics, autobody, car repair, farming, but oddly not shop/workworking. I picked drafting and first semester we used drafting tables but then we moved to using Autocad on DOS computers.
So, I fall outside the window by almost 10 years, but my high school had a shop class and students from any school in my county could go to the county vocational center half days their junior and/or senior year. I don’t know everything that was offered, but I know for sure cosmetology, automotive repair, photography, radio, and videography were all there, probably more.
My youngest is graduating next spring. Her high school has an Industrial Technology department, with classes like wood shop, automotive technology, construction, STEM lab, and manufacturing. There’s also a co-op program, where seniors can take normal high school classes for half a day and then classes towards a trade or other training for the other. I know that they have welding, construction, EMT/Fire science, nurse assistant, and cosmetology, but there might be more.
Next June will be 15 years for me, graduated in northern PA
My highschool allowed students, starting in 10th grade to spend half of their day at a separate school everyone called Vo-Tech. It was a joint program for every school in the county. For those kids, 10th, 11th and 12th grade would be only the classes they absolutely needed to graduate And then their program of choice. It was very popular and worked in tandem with a tiered system of classes that allowed some scheduling flexibility based on your academic strengths and weaknesses too
Also, to help kids plan, we all took a field trip to the Vo-Tech building in the 8th Grade to learn about the programs offered and the certifications you could get if you finished.
In my mind that’s the bar I hold high school career training up to. The school system I work for now absolutely fails in comparison
Yes, I graduated in 2012 and went to a vocational highschool. I learned metal fabrication and welding.
There’s 30+ vocational high schools in Massachusetts right now offering those classes and more. I personally didn’t go to one but I wanted to.
Man my school barely offered an art class
Yes but I did not take them. The classes were 2 towns over and you had to take a bus for half the day.
Graduated 20 years ago from a prep school in the Philadelphia suburbs – no these weren’t offered