On a 40-degree December day in the Central Valley, two dozen high school students in firefighter gear steady themselves before carrying and climbing a 24-foot, 100-pound ladder. They balance the ladders on their shoulders and place them against a two-story building.

“Going up,” they yell.

Next semester, students will extinguish burning cars and break down doors with axes, debunking the Hollywood shows that they can kick them in to gain access to a building, said instructor George Mavrikis, a former fire marshal, investigator and firefighter for 30 years.

“These students are getting a reality check on what it takes,” he said.

This is Clovis Unified School District’s emergency response program for firefighting, a 15-year-old pathway that introduces students to a career as a firefighter and other jobs, such as a paramedic. It’s part of the school district’s Career Technical Education, or CTE, and is among 21 broad pathways with over 80 classes.

Throughout California, CTE has never been more popular. More than 26% of students completed a pathway in 2025, up from 18% in 2018. Shifting attitudes about the value of college and concerns that students are not leaving high school with marketable skills have led to districts’ heightened focus on career education, including a push into elementary grades.

“I think the sooner, the better to open their eyes up to what is available and what classes they can take to get them there,” said Margaret Files, Clovis Unified’s CTE director.

Over 4,000 Clovis Unified students are enrolled in CTE courses, up by 800 since the 2021-22 school year.

And more options help students “find their passion and the pathway to pursue it,” Files said.

A recent high school graduate who completed the construction pathway is now working for Westech Systems as an apprentice electrician. And the education pathway classes are helping Clovis High School senior Madison Tillery with her plans to become a special education teacher, which she will have a “head start” on when she passes the assessment to become a teacher’s aide.

Sofia Corgiat-Cawelti, a 17-year-old senior at Clovis East High School, said she realized halfway through her first year in the firefighting program as a junior that she’d like to pursue a career in firefighting.  She has returned this year and is providing peer-to-peer support to first-year students.

“I enjoyed coming into class every day, even when it was really hard and rough,” she said. “Doing that as a job, I would love that.”

An Avenue for All Students

Historically, school systems had funneled students with behavior problems or those considered less likely to be college-bound through the CTE pipeline, formerly known as vocational education.

That changed as districts such as Sanger Unified School District in Fresno County began expanding the definition and focus of CTE more than a decade ago. Now, CTE programs offer both skill-based certificates and college classes to train all students for careers that may or may not require college degrees — important in Central Valley communities where there’s lower educational attainment, high unemployment and abject poverty, educators say.

“Breaking the cycle of poverty,” Sanger Unified Superintendent Dennis Wiechmann said, “sometimes it takes generations to do that. So how do we get them ahead of the curve in one generation? CTE is a great avenue.”

Increasingly, districts also see a need to raise career awareness well before high school.

Middle school parents and students in Clovis tour the district’s pathways at a CTE night, where the automotive department displays its electric car, the public safety program brings its ambulance simulator, and the culinary arts team cooks. Students can participate in career-focused clubs as well.

To expose even younger students to career paths and allow them to figure out what aligns with their interests, some districts are establishing CTE programs at the elementary level to improve students’ transition to middle and high school.

At the 20,000-student Madera Unified School District, career education starts in TK-6 grades. District leaders realized that eighth graders picked courses based on their friends’ interests or their limited knowledge of different career fields, said Kristin McKenna, the district’s college and career readiness director.

“Doctors make a lot of money. I’m going to take (health science),” students would say to each other, McKenna recalled. “And the first time that we do an injection to an orange in class, the kid realizes they don’t like needles. They were taking these things that they know nothing about because we hadn’t properly educated them.”

Now, all Madera Unified elementary students receive 50 minutes of STEM instruction that is tied to careers each week. For example, as students learn about bridges, the curriculum introduces them to what an engineer does.

By the sixth grade, students learn about little-known, high-wage pest control jobs by watching video lessons on the agriculture industry. Localized video lessons take them on the sideline of Madera High football games, where high schoolers on the health science pathway are wrapping ankles as student athletic trainers.

At a career fair, sixth graders pet rabbits, gaining quick tips on small animal care at the veterinary science booth, and punch the public safety instructor who is in a suit to show them defensive tactics.

In seventh grade, during a CTE explorations course run by high school teachers, students create flyers and videos for business and marketing; they do fingerprinting lessons from the public safety pathway. The pathways are available to students in eighth grade at a career center where, for half the day, they get multi-subject, project-based lessons in their chosen areas. At the center, students who are enrolled in the manufacturing and engineering pathway learn about trajectories and heights in a math class before designing and printing a rocket on a 3D printer.

Since adding curriculum for elementary students in 2015 and opening the center for eighth graders in 2021 to provide hands-on experience as they think about careers, Madera Unified has seen an increase in its CTE pathway retention and completion rates in high school. In 2020, 390 students completed a pathway; in 2025, nearly 700 students did.

Options After High School: Career, College, or Both

For 2024 graduates who took some high school CTE classes in Madera, 52% attend community college, 27% are enrolled at a university, 14% work, 6% are in the military and 1% are at a trade school, according to a district survey. Students who responded to the survey credited CTE for helping them plan for the future, identify potential career paths, and prepare them with skill-building and certification.

“Ultimately, we want every student to go on and have a productive life and be able to have a career,” said Bill Davis, the director of the Tulare-Kings College + Career Collaborative, a partnership between county education offices, school districts, higher education institutions and businesses.

“That’s the goal of education: getting students ready for this next step of their life.”

About the Reporter

Lasherica Thornton covers education in California’s Central Valley. Follow her on X @LashericaT