Senator Calderon Encourages Academic Partnership between Colleges and New Montebello High School
Senator Calderon Encourages Academic Partnership between Colleges and New Montebello High School
Contact Bob Jimenez June 22, 2012 323-236-6665
MONTEBELLO—Senator Ron Calderon is taking the Applied Technology Center, his district’s newest and most advanced high school, to the next level.
On Friday, the Montebello Democrat invited representatives from East Los Angeles College and Los Angeles Trade Technical College to join him in touring the school with the intention of encouraging the colleges to form an academic partnership with ATC. The colleges, for example, would allow its instructors to guest lecture at ATC at the same time ATC students would make periodic visits to the college campuses.
ATC offers traditional high school courses but also introduces students to four academies, in engineering and construction, health science, hospitality and public service. Senator Calderon and his guests were shown the hub classrooms of each academy, most of which already have state of the art hospital, workshop, electronic and culinary equipment. The school’s public service lab has a simulator that teaches students to drive law enforcement and emergency vehicles.
“Partnering with higher education is one more step in seeing that every student is given every opportunity to succeed,” said Senator Calderon. “What we give students at ATC, would, no doubt, be vastly improved if students could visit college courses that coincide with the academic pathways they’ve chosen.”
The visiting college representatives agree. After touring the high school they told Senator Calderon they would explore a number of options that included sharing technical knowledge, instructors and equipment.
The Applied Technical Center opened last fall and expects to hold its first graduation in 2015. School officials, state wide, unanimously agree that ATC is California’s high school of the future. All students are college ready at graduation but skilled to enter the workforce if they choose.
