Two reasons: DCS designs CTE around local industry and it lets students drive. “We can’t offer every program under the sun,” Castillo says. “So we do a comprehensive needs assessment and build where jobs and interests intersect.” In Manteo, middle-schoolers hand-build a skiff in STEM class; in high school, they consolidate those skills by building a 21-foot center-console boat in carpentry—using the same methods nearby yards use to craft 77-foot yachts. Students can step into a pre-apprenticeship with Bayliss Boatworks as they complete the pathway. At First Flight High School, the district’s aviation program nods to the Wright Brothers—and leaps forward. Through Tango Flight, juniors and seniors are building a two-seat Vans RV-12 airplane that will be FAA-certified, in a workshop with windows that look directly onto the Wright Brothers Memorial. A retired Navy rear admiral instructs side-by-side with teachers, while the feeder middle school adds a drone program to extend the pipeline. The curriculum surveys the entire sector— maintenance, piloting, aerospace—so students discover where they fit. In Cape Hatteras, a 6–12 campus is converting a retired activity bus into a “skoolie” tiny home, a whole-school project that has budding designers drafting floor plans, career-tech students doing the build-out, and apparel & textile classes sewing custom seat covers for reading corners around the school. It’s hands-on transdisciplinarity with clear, marketable outcomes. The district has layered in auto mechanics apprenticeships with local dealerships, welding credentials in partnership with the community college and a regional shipyard that services state ferries, and fire tech training at a town firehouse where students can become certified firefighters before graduation. In hospitality, First Flight operates a student-run coffee shop inside the Child Nutrition program during breakfast service—an innovation coordinated so that sales comply with nutrition rules while 248 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 06, ISSUE 11
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