As the City of Spokane fire truck rolled into the parking lot at Shadle Park High School, students became wide-eyed and excited. These weren’t high school students, though. These were preschool students, ages three to five.
Three SPS high schools – Shadle, North Central and Ferris – host early childhood development classes, a Career and Technology Education (CTE) course that helps prepare students for jobs after high school.
At Shadle, the class is open to any student no matter their grade level or prior experience working with kids. Students often take the class and then join the Teaching Academy course, where they learn teaching skills and work with elementary and middle school kids in area schools. For students interested in a career in teaching or childhood development, these courses provide hands-on experience and look great on resumes and college applications.
“I just like working with kids and teaching them new things that they haven’t learned yet,” said sophomore Ella Vandergriend, who has previous experience working with kids as young as six months old. “You have to have patience and work with them as best you can.”
Toni Dang teaches the class at Shadle. She’s responsible for supervising two dozen preschool students who are learning how to act in a classroom setting with their peers, and she’s also providing instruction for 46 high school students in the CTE course. One of those high school students is junior Nolan Dedrick.
“I just like kids, and I like teaching them and being around them,” he said. “We have fun with them, teach them wrong and right, those kinds of things. I feel like I’d be a good teacher someday.”
On this day, Dedrick and Vandergriend were busy corralling preschoolers who were filled with excitement about the fire truck visit. As they waited for the truck to arrive—it was slightly delayed due to an emergency call earlier that morning—high school students kept kids entertained with a game of Duck, Duck, Goose, developing balance skills by hopping along the sidewalk, and imaginative play.
Once the fire truck arrived, preschool students grew excited as they walked through the cab and posed for photos in front of the big red rig. While their high school teachers may be planning to enter careers in education or youth services, maybe this experience will inspire the preschoolers to become firefighters or emergency responders.
CTE Early Childhood Ed Programs check two boxes in our community: They give high school students valuable, real-world experience they will use after high school as they enter the workforce, and they provide an opportunity for local families to access a low-cost, part-time early learning option.