Friday, administrators with the Picayune School District’s Career and Technology Center hosted their annual cookout at Jack Read Park to celebrate student achievements.
There were 77 students gathered at the park, all of whom recently completed their second year in one of the technology center’s programs, Picayune Career and Technology Center Director Joaun Lee said.
“It’s a way to celebrate their completion,” she said. “Our courses are solely an elective choice so we also celebrate and appreciate the fact they’ve chosen to explore career and technology two-year programs.”
Each year, in each of the eight programs, Lee awards a certificate to the students who scored the highest on the CPAS test, a state mandated career and technology test. All students are required to take it, she added. This year, students also received a $50 gift card to Walmart.
Jonathan Hebert scored the highest in the automotive program, John Seal for health and science, Danielle Leclercq for architecture and drafting, Destiny Mitchell for early childhood education II, Gelsey Guerra for marketing II, D’Anna Gravley for finance and accounting II and Seth Relayson for engineering II.
Lee said the career and technology center supports the high school in many ways, the most important being the career readiness objectives.
“We offer students a hands-on application,” Lee said. “We don’t teach our students reading, writing and arithmetic, we teach them how to apply that knowledge in a lab-based setting. Our local businesses and industries are valuable assets to our students. They offer our students jobs and give them a real-life experience in that career field. It’s a win/win situation for local businesses because it helps to better prepare a potential workforce.”