By Brianna Paredes
Staff Writer
At the September 16, 2024, Lytle School Board Meeting, Jennifer Criswell, the Director of P-TECH and CTE (Career and Technical Education) briefly did a presentation about P-TECH, which is a four-year associate degree program that stands for Pathways in Technology Early College, and CTE. It combines post secondary schooling and a high school diploma. Criswell, describes the program as “a school within a school.” This program is open to all students as the enrollment decision does not go based off students’ STAAR results or discipline history.
The P-TECH Expansion plan includes the following pathways: Education, Electric, Culinary, Business, and Cyber Security. Criswell goes on to mention some of the major things that P-TECH impacts are schedules because the students are managing both their P-TECH college courses while also taking high school electives. With that, Criswell said that this year, transportation “takes about an hour,” as they have to transport the students to different campuses depending on their pathway. The entrance requirements to the P-TECH program is the application and the TSIA, in which there is no denial. Jennifer Criswell also notes that “this is the first year that we are paying out of district funds for P-TECH students, so it is completely free to the students.” She also highlights that there is a higher number of students this year, than last year, as there are currently 115. Currently enrolled in business are 32, in CNC are 7, in Culinary are 12, in Cyber Security are 14, in Education are 17, and in Electric are 8. In thinking of the potential adjustments and future of P-TECH, Criswell plans to conduct a career interest inventory in the Spring of 2025, starting with the Junior High, to take recommendations on which programs should be continued or phased out.
Computer Numerical Control was P-TECH’s first associates degree pathway. As the first rounds of P-TECH were in play, 2021-2022 continued to be a planning year to expand the programs offered, and year 2022-2023 went down as the first graduating CNC cohort.