In a district where college-level classes have become the high school norm, some Montgomery County parents worry support for technical programs, a saving grace for many students who aren’t high achievers, will fall apart.
Thomas Edison High School in Silver Spring operates a half-day program for students from around the district who want options no longer found at their regular schools, such as auto shop, cosmetology and graphic design. For years, however, applicants for the programs have outpaced space while funding and teachers have declined.
This year, about 90 percent of students who applied to programs got into one, though some programs, such as auto shop, are far more competitive than others, Principal Carlos Hamlin said.
The teacher-to-student ratio has risen to 21 to 1, from 15 to 1 in 2004. Funding for supplies and equipment for the district’s entire career technology program has fallen to $107,000 requested for 2009, from $155,500 in 2006.
“We need a larger facility for sure,” Hamlin said, adding the school’s population of students with special needs and English-language learners has grown in his three years at the helm. In 2008, special needs students make up 27 percent of Edison‘s overall population of 625 students. English learners make up 13 percent.
Hamlin’s population of low-income students has grown, too, a reflection of demographic changes affecting the district. This year, they’ve increased to 36 percent of Edison’s population of 625 students, up from 26 percent in 2003.
“These are kids who will have to work if they expect to attend college,” Edison said, nervous about the tight economy his students will enter.
Overall, the district champions enrollment in career and technology education, but it has expanded the term to include pathways such as pre-engineering and principles of architecture for which students enroll in multiple AP courses such as calculus and physics.
Sierra Swerdlin, a senior in Edison’s graphic design program, wasn’t interested in AP calculus.
“I don’t want to be at my home school all day – I don’t think any of us do,” Swerdlin said, crediting Edison for increasing her organization and her self-esteem.
Her mother, Laura, noticed the difference in her daughter as soon as she started at Edison her junior year.
“If anything, we need to have more options like Edison.”
