And CTE director Donneta Oremus told the school board March 7 that it is only going to get bigger.

Asked by school board member Bruce Larsen where CTE will be in five years, Oremus predicted it will have its own facility. She said thousands of students are taking CTE classes.

“These are high-demand, high-wage” jobs they are learning the skills for, she said. “This is a career path for them.”

Oremus said students enjoy the classes because they can see how it will benefit them. “CTE is the fun stuff, the cool equipment,” she said.

Business partners interact with students. “We already bring industries into the schools, just not enough,” she said, adding she’s trying to get the aerospace industry involved.

Professionals also are on advisory councils that give feedback on best practices. “We’re trying to best meet the needs of the students,” Oremus said.

She said demand for CTE courses will grow as elementary students who are learning coding.org reach middle and high school. CTE courses in middle school already are growing. For example, next year, a graphic design and “detective” course are planned for Marysville Middle School.

The detective class already is being taught at Marysville Getchell High School to ninth-graders in the Bio-Med academy by Mark Bond.

He said the course actually is an introduction to the principles of bio-med science. Students learn the thought process of exploring the mysterious death of the fictitious Anna Garcia.

“What was the cause of death?” he said.

They look at crime scene observations, test medications, look at her medical history, and more. At the end of the year they pull it all together and answer the question.

“Students can’t spoil it because there are multiple scenarios,” Bond said of his ex-students.

The class after that one is on the human body system. Students do a lot of online research and collaborate, problem-solve, and work in groups to discover answers on their own.

Bond likes how students tell him when they make a mistake.

“They ask for time to go back and do it again,” he said. “That’s what science is all about.”

Sophomore Evelyn Gutierrez she likes the class because it’s related to what she wants to be – a pediatric nurse. She took biology last year and wanted to broaden her knowledge and go more in-depth.

“I want to know how the human body works,” she said.