Photo courtesy of Marshall Public Schools: Marshall High School Family and Consumer Science students show their cooking skills during class, one of the many career readiness and life skill lessons the class teaches.

MARSHALL — The Marshall High School Family and Consumer Science (FACS) classes are continuing to see good turnout amongst student interest, along with some new department updates that further career opportunities for students.

MHS FACS teachers Kris Campion and Annika Hanson gave a presentation regarding their classes to the school board last week. Of the updates given, Campion spoke on Marshall recently being selected as a pilot school for a new child development program.

“Last year, we became a pilot school for the MDE (Minnesota Department of Education) to implement the new Child Development Associate (CDA) Certification. This is a brand new program, and it really comes from a group in Minnesota called Child Care Aware, that is trying to get more people into the daycare industry to fill that huge daycare shortage that we have in the state,” Campion said. “They started this program to create interest in high schools and help kids get this certification through their coursework in high school. What they have to do is have 120 hours of classroom instruction, which would mean Child Development 1, and Child Development 2.”

Campion noted that this is the first year the high school is able to teach Child Development 2 in person with a teacher, which originally was an independent study that offered challenges. The 120 required hours comes from taking the two classes.

“They have to do 480 hours of field experience, which is really an extensive amount of time. But, we do have kids working for different day cares in the community,” Campion said. “If they work in early childhood, come and volunteer at the elementary level, they can earn hours that way or working with any daycare. So, over a couple-year period, we definitely had students that were able to fulfill those 480 hours.”

Students in the program then proceed to collaborate with Empower to Educate representatives, a part of Child Care Aware, to further help build their portfolios and prepare for the CDA exam.

“We did have one student, the first student in the whole state, to finish it,” Campion said. “She has a certification, she can now be a lead teacher in a daycare center, and she has those requirements to fulfill the needs for lots of families in our community.”

“We were kind of the guinea pig, and we worked through it, and it was really great,” Campion added. “It’s going to provide some really wonderful things for our community, and for people in the state. So, that’s our new, exciting program, and change that I think is really going to be beneficial for kids.”

FACS is a part of the Career and Technical Education program throughout the district, meant to teach students a variety of life skills and give exposure to different career fields.

“Looking at the district’s mission to educate, support and prepare all learners for success, I think that’s what our FACS programs have done from the beginning of time. That’s what we do. We always have a high number of students that register … Our average class size is 33 even with two teachers, we are plumb full. We have no more room, but that’s a good problem,” Campion said. “We’re preparing you for careers, but we’re also preparing you for life. It’s just been honestly the best job in the world, and it’s fun to work with these kids and to teach them things they might fall in love with and maybe choose a career from.”

Hanson said students in the freshmen FACS classes learn about money management, budgeting, communication and conflict resolution, cooking skills, food safety, clothing care, decision-making skills and health and wellness foundation.

“Living On Your Own (classes) aligns with and fulfills the newly implemented MDE personal finance graduation requirement for all students. It’s effective with this year’s sophomores and all future graduating classes,” Hanson said. “We cover content of budgeting, financial planning, credit insurance, investing, as well as consumer awareness.”

Hanson also noted there is an Interpersonal Relationships course as well, that covers content regarding communication skills and building healthy connections, relationships and personal responsibility in all aspects of life.

Another popular area of FACS are the Fashion and Interior Design classes, where Campion said she has seen a lot of interest from her students.

“It is the elements and principles of design which relate to any kind of design, graphic design, fashion, interior so that is put together. I would say it’s very introductory, because we have them for nine weeks and try to give them a taste of those careers,” Campion said. “We have lots of kids that go into these different fields. … (One student) owns a business in Maple Grove, a very successful business in interior design. She’s awesome. (Another student) is a fashion major at Iowa State, and she received one of 20 internships in the country at Anthropologie, part of the urban company … Lots of interest and lots of career options for kids.”

High school principal Brian Jones also gave an update following Term 1 grading and where current students are sitting grade-wise, to which he noted great findings. He also said he looks at student grading at the end of each week to track passing and failing students.

“One of the things that really jumped out to us, that we saw for the first time in a long time, is where we had all four grade levels above 90% (passing at the end of Term 1), and that’s been a goal of ours internally for a long time,” Jones said. “We hit that occasionally … We haven’t seen that in a while, so we were pretty excited about that.”