Some grads explore technical trades

High school programs allow students to try out alternative career paths

He discovered the ‘‘intriguing” trade of carpentry through a series of classes at Thomas Edison High School of Technology.

A school counselor had brought in a video showing Edison’s technical programs, and Anapolle signed up as a sophomore.

For two and a half years, Anapolle attended three academic classes at Whitman each morning. He then boarded a bus to Edison, where other students learned plumbing, HVAC, electricity and masonry.

‘‘I forgot what a normal schedule was like,” he said. Rarely were construction students given homework, he said, but the courses were rigorous and ‘‘you couldn’t slack off at all.”

Anapolle remembers being the only Whitman student at Edison during his first semester. He guessed about five or 10 students learning various trades — automotive, computer related, catering, hotel management — are from Whitman.

Anapolle said his trade-oriented path after college hasn’t been unconditionally embraced by school counselors.

‘‘Due to this Edison program, I’ve seen I like to actually get more hands-on work experience,” Anapolle said. But counselors urge him to consider college, which comes across ‘‘like a pushy salesman,” he said.

‘‘They don’t really respect the fact that I want to go a different route in a sense” and ‘‘seem to almost ignore the fact that I don’t really want to go to college or continue my schooling,” he said. Whitman staff seem reticent to suggest potential companies where Anapolle could work, instead saying, ‘‘You should also look at a few colleges.”

Edison teachers have suggested companies that could be hiring, and alumni he spoke with from the Edison construction program may have future jobs for him, he said.

‘‘The research is showing they still need the college readiness. The same skills and knowledge are needed to get a good career path later in life,” Shelley A. Johnson, director of the MCPS career and technology education division. ‘‘The preparation for college and careers is the same. It’s really leveling off.”

A career pathways program that encompasses a number of professions is ‘‘available to all students; that may allow them to explore their possibilities,” said Christopher Harrison, an introductory engineering design teacher at Whitman.

Harrison said the goal is to prepare students to ‘‘meet the needs” of Maryland and the United States — and Bethesda, as it gears up for the massive merger of National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Montgomery County Public Schools has since 2003 been reworking and rebranding its approach to career preparation — now offering a four-credit track called the career pathways program.

‘‘It’s not your old vo-tech anymore,” Johnson said.

Engineering, information technology, finance and health care are the most popular clusters of career pathways, Johnson said.

‘‘You can find out you don’t like something just as much as you can find out you do,” Johnson said. ‘‘One kid did a clinical rotation at Suburban [Hospital] and said, ‘Oh, I can save my parents a lot of money.’”

About 21,000 students in MCPS high schools were enrolled in at least one career pathway program this school year — about 5,000 more than in 2007. Teachers and school counselors are given a toolkit to advertise the program to students, and the program is expanding.

Walter Johnson High School is getting ready to start an interactive media program, Johnson said.

Whitman is a Project Lead The Way school, which means classroom curriculum is supplemented with hands-on work in engineering and biomedical science.

Whitman courses ‘‘expose more kids to the engineering field and better prepare them for the rigors of college” or ‘‘to go out into the workplace if they don’t pursue the college road,” said Andrew Wetzel, athletics director who taught engineering courses at Whitman.

‘‘With our population, they’re typically four-year-college kids, so we haven’t had any that have gone on not into the college realm,” Wetzel said.