Garrett Middle School

The Don Wood Foundation awarded $280,000 to Garrett-Keyser-Butler (GKB) Community Schools to enhance their Career Exploration course, keeping middle school students engaged in CTE and overall education. Recent Gallup polls have revealed a significant decrease in student engagement in their education as they progress from elementary to high school. The middle school years seem to be particularly challenging, with a 30% drop in engagement. The Don Wood Foundation recognizes the importance of supporting GKB's efforts to retain engagement in middle school students. This school year, more than 270 students in grades 5 to 8 are engaged in career exploration through the Garrett Career Exploration course. They started with shop safety and were challenged to construct their own desks and rewrite the assembly instructions. Throughout the academic year, they will dive into various sectors such as vertical construction, horizontal construction, manufacturing, welding, agriculture, robotics, and many others. English and math curriculum will also be incorporated into each industry module for the class. Class instructor, Taylor Smith said, "Our goal with the middle school career development program is to create an environment where students are learning hands-on skills and have the opportunity to apply them to real-world scenarios. Students have been fully engaged and truly cared about the quality of the products they were building. I could not have asked for a better start to this program and look forward to seeing what my students are capable of when presented with new challenges."