Many of the students who have taken any engineering class here at Southeast could say that working on the car and all of its bits and pieces has been their favorite part of the class. When coming back from the end of the First Quarter break, many of those students were disappointed to know that the car will no longer be used in class and wanted to know why that change was made. 

According to the engineering teacher Austin Andrews, that decision was part of the administration’s goal to make Southeast’s agriculture program the best it can be. 

“South and North have automotive programs,” Andrews said. “We’re trying to do something different. We’re trying to make something grand. And sometimes you gotta take away things in order for that to happen.”

Andrews’ classes are part of the Agriculture pathway. A pathway is a series of courses that a student can take to become specialized in that certain skill. Andrews’ classes often collaborate with classes such as Animal Science, and they just recently built a barn for Jerry the donkey. There are many pathways that are out there but not all of them are offered at each school.

“One reason that every pathway doesn’t exist at all of our comprehensive high schools is simply because there may not be a teacher that has the licensure required to be able to teach the classes in that pathway,” USD 259 Executive Director of College and Career Readiness Timothy Hamblin said. “It’s not that we don’t want students at high school A to have a certain program. It’s just that high school A may not have any teachers that have the licensure required to offer that class.”

Despite the changes to the curriculum, Andrews remains optimistic about future plans and goals for his classroom. 

“Just because it’s not a vehicle doesn’t mean it’s not the same thing you’re learning,” Andrews explains. “Our goal is [to] try and find a tractor, and my goal is to have you guys restore it and make it what it should be, and that, there, is where we need to start looking.”

Principal Claudia Cooper has eyes on expanding the program in the future.

“I would love to see us continue to build on the animal science,” Cooper said. “I think that we need a greenhouse, we need a barn. … so that our students can really get in and work with some bigger animals.”

If a student were interested in a program that is not offered at their current high school, they can apply for that program that might be at a different school.