CHIMACUM — One of the most important lessons in cooking is the ability to improvise.

Four Chimacum High School students found out the hard way when the chocolate peppermint cookies they baked turned out flat and crunchy rather than soft and chewy.

“I almost started to cry,” said Ada Garden Osmer, 14.

Rather than give up, Garden Osmer, Kylianna Lane, 15, Gladys Gallaway, 15, and Carolyn Conner, 14, pried the crisp brown discs from the pan, crushed them, arranged the pieces into a heart shape on individual plates, sprinkled them with sweetened coconut flakes, and voila! Peppermint chocolate cookie crumbles.

The girls, who also made breakfast tacos that came out perfectly, were among the seven teams in instructor Justin Oas’ culinary arts class preparing dishes for a panel of five judges for their semester final exam.

Culinary arts, along with healthcare sciences and construction, are career and technical education (CTE) pathways offered at Chimacum that provide hands-on training and real-world skills to prepare students for careers beyond high school.

CTE is similar to what used to be called vocational training, but with greatly expanded programs and goals to prepare students to be workforce- , career- and college-ready.

February is CTE Month, which raises awareness about the program and what it does.

Kelley Watson was hired last fall to beef up Chimacum’s CTE program. Workforce data from Jefferson Community Foundation was essential in identifying those areas where CTE would have the biggest impact, Watson said.

“The CTE programs were strategically chosen to meet employment needs in the community,” said Watson, who created the maritime career and technical education CTE classes at Port Townsend High School. “Eighteen percent of our employees are in construction, manufacturing, maritime and the paper mill. So, we really need robust programs that can support people entering those trades.”

The district also tapped into data from the Social Science Research Council’s Measure of America that showed 25 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds in Jefferson County are not working, in school or in the military.

“Part of that is it’s really hard to get a job here and it costs $37,000 a year to meet bare-minimum needs as a single person,” Watson said. “We’ve got to bring job readiness into the schools and make it really interesting and accessible for students.”

Chimacum school superintendent Scott Mauk said the district also has looked beyond Jefferson County as well as internally in deciding what its CTE program needs to accomplish.

“We know that the three big demand areas in the state are marine trades, healthcare and construction, so we’re trying to pivot to make sure that we can get on board with what the state’s economic needs are,” Mauk said. “The other piece is to give kids more options to get to graduation, to graduate with skills that they need and get work with or go to trade school right after they’re done.”

Oas said students come into the culinary program with a wide range of experience and goals, so he starts with the basics.

“We spend a lot of time on food safety, the different kind of knives and how to sharpen them,” said Oas, who is also the district’s food services director. “Sanitizing, hand washing and food temperature.”

One of the first lessons is making pickled onions and cucumbers that will be used in the school’s food truck.

“The food truck does a variety of events on and off campus for students to get experience in menu creation, food prep and building an entrepreneurial skill set,” said Kellen Lynch, a professionally trained baker whose part-time position is funded through the Community Wellness Project.

Lynch, who is also director of development and communications for Olympic Housing Trust, said, “The public is so supportive that we have a hard time keeping up with the demand.”

Tyler Walcheff teaches classes in the new Healthcare Science career pathway that began this year: principles of biomedical science for ninth- and 10th-graders and more advanced classes in medical terminology and anatomy and physiology for 11th- and 12th-graders.

Students who take CTE classes aren’t required to be on a career pathway. Those in Walcheff’s classes, for example, can satisfy general science requirements they need to graduate. Those enrolled in medical terminology and anatomy and physiology also can earn college credit through Olympic College in Bremerton.

Dual-credit CTE classes like those offered in Chimacum’s health sciences, culinary arts and carpentry classes give students a leg up in their post-high school goals. It’s just another benefit of the program, Walcheff said.

“lt seeds their learning in the real world and provides an opportunity to explore career pathways that they might not have exposure to,” Walcheff said. “And they’re pathways that provide significant economic security, especially in our geographic location.”

A significant barrier to offering CTE programs, particularly for smaller districts like Chimacum, is cost. The classes typically require special tools, machinery and equipment that makes them more expensive than general education classes. In addition, programs like culinary arts and construction have continuing material costs.

“We’re really aggressive in pursuing grants, but we also have community partners that offer up money, like folks in the construction trades or healthcare,” Mauk said. “It’s not just state funding or federal funding but private industry that can enhance what we have because they need people who can join their workforce.”

While students were busy baking, steaming, sauteing and frying in the culinary arts classroom, those in Daniel Evans’ CTE construction trades class were being tested on how well they could construct a 10½-inch-tall “T” out of a 2-by-4 and joined by two countersunk screws. It had to be able to stand up by itself, too.

Construction trades classes teach students skills such as the proper use of hand and power tools, taking precise measurements with a tape measure and trim square, safety practices, and carpentry and joinery.

Evans said much of what students learn — time management, teamwork, attention to detail, problem-solving, communication — isn’t just applicable to the construction trade.

“Those are things you’ll use for the rest of your life,” said Evans, the former race boss for Northwest Maritime’s SEVENTY48 and Race to Alaska, who began teaching at the high school three years ago.

Starting next fall, Evans will lead Chimacum Valley Tech, a new CTE construction trades program designed to teach foundational skills for jobs in the construction, marine trades, manufacturing and paper mill industries.

Run in partnership with the Community Boat Project and Habitat for Humanity of East Jefferson County, Chimacum Valley Tech will be a half-day program with units focusing on shop safety, reading blueprints, welding and electrical basics, framing, siding, roofing and finish carpentry.

Offering students the opportunity to do something new that also could be a life-changing experience was the goal. And if they decide it isn’t for them, that is OK, too, Mauk said.

“We’re just trying to help kids imagine what their lives could be like doing something maybe that they hadn’t thought of that really is fun and exciting and well-paying,” he said.

Those with questions about Chimacum’s CTE program can contact Kelley Watson at Kelley_Watson@csd49.org.

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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.