Spring Lake Park highlights career-and-college pathways as students describe hands-on learning

Spring Lake Park Public Schools on May 13 showcased its career-and-college pathways and AVID program, with students and staff describing hands-on classroom work, concurrent-enrollment opportunities and community partnerships that provide workplace experience.

The district said the pathways — Technology, Engineering and Design (TED); Business and Entrepreneurship; and Health and Human Services — now include dozens of courses with college credit options. Melissa Olsen, director of learning design and student engagement, told the board the high school currently offers about 50 courses that may include college credit and that in the most recent graduating class 74 percent of students earned at least one college credit.

That context matters because district leaders said the pathways aim to help students explore career options while earning credits that reduce future college cost and time. "We were thinking about how are we embedding that college credit so that students don't have to make a choice between college credit…