Catholic HS Academics and Trades
In another time, if there were a reference to “vocational education” at the secondary school level in U.S. Catholicism, it would likely be about a high school seminary. But today, some Catholic high schools are acknowledging that college may not be the ultimate path for all of their students and are teaching them skills and trades to help them find jobs right after they earn their diplomas. Catholic HS Academics and Trades.
One such school is St. Mary’s South Side Catholic High School, an all-boys high school in St. Louis. A year ago, it began an elective pre-apprenticeship exposure curriculum for its juniors and seniors, with representatives from more than a dozen skilled trades taking their turn coming into the classroom to explain the job, the skills needed to do the job right, and how to acquire those skills.
Thirteen students took the one-semester course last fall. This fall — school started Aug. 14 at St. Mary’s — 15 students are enrolled, according to Valerie Todd, the principal.
“We were the first school in Missouri to offer this pre-admission program,” said Todd, who grew up near the school located in the Dutchtown neighborhood. She said the curriculum stems from the North America’s Building Trades Unions.
Initiative Partners
The educational initiative has the blessing of Jake Hummel, an electricians’ union member who is head of the Missouri AFL-CIO and himself a St. Mary’s alumnus. The state labor federation’s Missouri Works Initiative partners with St. Mary’s to develop the course syllabus and arrange for guest instructors from the skilled trades to come to the classroom on their assigned weeks.
This is not something new at St. Mary’s. “We have had over the years some kind of trade opportunities,” said Todd, who has been at St. Mary’s for 27 years. “We used to have electricity and HVAC classes for a while. For the last — probably since the 2019-20 school year — we had a partnership with Ranken,” a 2,300-student technical college in St. Louis that offers degree and certification programs in automotive, electrical, construction, IT and manufacturing. St. Mary’s students enjoyed “dual enrollment” at both the high school and Ranken, and “would go there half the day,” Todd said.
While the St. Mary’s South Side program appears unique, there are other Catholic educational institutions that have developed their own approach.
The Cristo Rey Network, a collection of 40 Catholic high schools nationwide with more than 12,300 students, still wants its students to go to college, but will pair its students with established professionals in a field being considered by the student as a future profession.
Post Secondary
There are also a handful of Catholic post-secondary trade schools in operation throughout the United States: Santiago Trade School, just outside Silverado, California, the College of St. Joseph the Worker in Steubenville, Ohio, Kateri College in Gallup, New Mexico, and Harmel Academy of the Trades in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
St. Mary’s isn’t positioning itself as “the little school that could,” although it could be seen that way. It was founded by the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1931, as the Great Depression was reaching its nadir. Dutchtown, once a solid working-class neighborhood, “has seen better days,” Todd acknowledged.
During the 2022-23 school year, the archdiocese announced it would close St. Mary’s, an announcement that shocked and stunned community members, school families and alumni. Todd said the Marianist order, which had been supplying its members for decades to teach at St. Mary’s, took over sponsorship of the school, which kept its doors open and now educates about 215 young men.
Source: Catholic HS Academics and Trades