Indiana graduation requirements spur jump in high school career training

Shop class at Shoals High School was once seen as a joke — just an elective to fill time. But these days, “Shoals shop,” as everyone calls the class, is the heart of school for many students. 

“It's just a great class,” said Brayden, a junior who got permission to skip study hall on a Tuesday in October and join a construction class he wasn’t even officially enrolled in. 

“It's kind of just whatever we end up doing,” he said, “whether it's working with metal, working on vehicles or the tractor — or building picnic tables, shooting benches, the barn, pouring concrete.”

The transformation of “Shoals shop” began six years ago, when the rural school hired a new teacher who launched career training programs in construction and agriculture. The initiative was part of a commitment to career education in the district, which now expects every high schooler to choose a career pathway.

And Shoals is not alone. Participation in high-school career education surged across Indiana over the past several years. In the class of 2023, more than 80% of students took at least one course in a career training pathway, according to data provided to WFYI by the state. That’s about 69,000 students, an increase of nearly 16,000 compared to five years before.

About 40% of students concentrated in career fields — that means they took at least three classes in a focus area.

The new interest in career and technical education, or CTE, coincides with a growing skepticism among American families about the value of traditional four-year college degrees. Nationally, career and technical education has rare bipartisan support. Both Biden and Trump have pushed for greater investment.
 

Policy changes shape the future

Once known as vocational education, CTE has been rebranded to include training for both blue-collar jobs like welding and white-collar fields such as accounting and information technology. The courses help students secure entry-level jobs or pursue college degrees.

Growing enrollment in Indiana is likely driven by new graduation requirements that encourage high schoolers to pursue career and technical education.

“We have seen tremendous growth in terms of the number of students that are participating in CTE courses and the number of schools that are offering CTE courses,” said Anthony Harl, who oversees career and technical education for the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. “A lot of that goes to some of the policies that have been established at the state level.”

Earlier this year, the Indiana Department of Education showed support for infusing career preparation into high school. It released a controversial draft of diploma requirements that would have emphasized work-based learning — possibly at the expense of college preparatory classes. That plan faced so much pushback from the public that the Indiana Department of Education largely scrapped it in favor of a much more narrow redesign.

But Indiana has already begun to shift high school toward career preparation. In 2017, Indiana policymakers approved an overhaul of diploma requirements known as "graduation pathways." Previously, Indiana students had been required to pass high-stakes graduation exams. The new rules allow students to choose between taking an academic exam, like the SAT, and showing they are qualified in other ways. By 2023, the most common way students qualified was by concentrating on a career pathway.

Those rules helped spur Shoals High School to embrace career and technical education.
 

A CTE evolution in Shoals

Kindra Hovis was principal of the high school when the state rolled out its new graduation requirements. Hovis, who is now superintendent of the Shoals Community Schools, said that she and other administrators were inspired by the state’s new policy.

At the time, students had limited opportunities for career training. Only three students from the class of 2018 concentrated in a career field, according to state data. 

At the time, Shoals even lacked an agriculture pathway, despite being in a farming community, Hovis said.

Shoals’ leaders decided they would prepare for the new graduation requirements by going all in on career and technical education. Their aim was not only to help high schoolers graduate, but also to offer classes that are interesting and useful for students after high school. 

The 200-student high school now offers 11 career pathways, and nearly 80 percent of the Shoals class of 2023 concentrated in a career. 

A new teacher at the school helped build up the career and technical education programs. Ben Kent, a Shoals graduate who had a background in farming and construction. 

His classes blend agriculture and construction, with students building a barn and maintaining a working farm on campus. 

Shoals High schoolers raise animals like pigs and chickens and grow vegetables — serving that food in the school cafeteria. The school also sells some of what the program produces to the community — like pulled pork that they make on-site in a smoker students helped build. 

“I’m not so worried about tests and paper stuff, but them getting the experience,” Kent said. “I’m growing young adults I feel like.”
 

What does the change mean for students?

Career and technical education is supposed to serve all kinds of students. They learn skills and earn certifications that can lead to better paying jobs out of high school. And they can begin studying fields they plan to pursue in college, like engineering. 

It’s also a way for younger people to test out careers early. Shoals junior Alyssa Taylor was in Kent’s animal science class on a Tuesday in October. When she started high school, Alyssa wanted to be a veterinarian. So she chose to study healthcare and agriculture.

But when Alyssa had to practice packing a wound in her freshman healthcare class, she got woozy. “I don't want to be a vet anymore because I can't handle needles or blood,” she said. 

If she hadn’t taken healthcare, Alyssa thinks she would’ve been in college before she figured that out.

For some Shoals students, career classes are transformative. 

One of them is Brayden, who skipped study hall to come to construction. 

WFYI is only identifying Brayden by his first name because this story involves sensitive information about him. 

Brayden said career classes are the only part of school that feels relevant and useful. 

He thinks about quitting to get a job. But he has a reason to stay: “Kent’s class. Pretty much Kent’s class and welding. That's about it. I really have no other purpose here.”

This story was supported by the Higher Education Media Fellowship at the Institute for Citizens & Scholars.

Contact WFYI education reporter Dylan Peers McCoy at dmccoy@wfyi.org.