MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Middletown High School has a thriving Career Technical Education (CTE) department when it comes to their arts, media and entertainment pathway as well as their business and finance pathway.

Career Technical Education classes – also known as Regional Occupational Programs, or ROP – are meant to teach students skills that make them ready for real world application and employment.

Jennifer Pyzer teaches in both of these pathways and also is a Yuba College business department instructor.

This unique relationship has allowed the students at Middletown High School to take advantage of an articulation agreement between the two institutions permitting the students to learn college material and earn college credit in both ROP desktop publishing and ROP accounting.

Pyzer teachers several classes at Middletown High including ROP office skills, desktop publishing, ROP digital arts and ROP accounting.

Students enrolled in the ROP accounting class learn 10-key, bookkeeping and business skills. If they earn a grade of “B” or better in the class and score a “C” or better on the final, they are eligible to earn Yuba College credit.

Students in the ROP digital arts course learn a variety of computer programs and applications including PhotoShop.

The ROP digital arts course is one of only a few CTE classes that have become an approved A-G college admission accepted elective.

Unlike many computer classes, this course teaches the students more than just application. By studying famous art work and learning color theory, students learning across the typical departmental boundaries.

An example of this is a lesson in which students utilized their computer skills to mimic famous works of art such as “The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali and “Pintos” by Bev Doolittle.

According to Pyzer, students are able to be creative using a tool with which they already are familiar.

 

As is common in many computer classes, not all students take the course because they want to pursue a career in technology. However, their definition of a computer based career may be different than you may think.

According to Pyzer, “Computers are becoming to younger generations what pens and pencils are to older generations.”

Because of this students are reportedly taking the classes for a variety of reasons including the need to meet the college A-G admissions, helping them be successful in other classes, and to further their skills for college and the work force.

For more information on the Career Technical Education classes offered with Pyzer at Middletown High School, please contact her at 707-998-4140 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Tammy Serpa is a program specialist for the Lake County Office of Education.