Torrance brings industry specialists to high schools to showcase film and video CTE pathways

A Torrance City staff member said the city is bringing industry specialists into classrooms to introduce Career Technical Education (CTE) pathways to Torrance Unified students.

Christine Lee, an industry specialist, told students she hopes the visits inspire interest in journalism, video production and storytelling. “My passion started right here in high school. This is when I discovered I love to be a storyteller. I love to do things for TV. I want to try to aspire to do this in as big of a stage as I can,” Lee said.

The city representative described CTE as a program Torrance Unified started to build pipelines and pathways for students interested in certain careers and said the city is “one of the biggest employers in the area” and closely connected with Torrance Unified. The staff member said the program will visit all four Torrance Unified district high schools and that the city is bringing industry experts to each school to talk about film and video production as well as other CTE pathways.

Lee emphasized the value of in-classroom exposure to working professionals. “When you have an opportunity to share a little bit about your background and why it is that you're doing all these things, you're able to come across students that you can impact in in a really special way. So I love the opportunity to come and visit them in person like this,” she said.

Students who spoke after the sessions described positive reactions. One student said, “I thought, like, the storytelling part was cool. You can create, like, any story, and a lot of people could, like, come and listen, be interested in it, you know? This was, really fun, so I like the experience.” Another student said they learned the city offers more opportunities than they knew and that seeing professionals’ paths was “really interesting.”

A Torrance City staff member noted community support for the program, saying, “They fund all of this,” and framed the visits as a way for the city to give back to students and families.

No formal actions or votes were recorded in the transcript for these classroom visits; the remarks in the record are descriptions of an outreach activity and students’ reactions.