Students repair a robot

Career and Technical Education at Umatilla School District

IMESD

February 11, 2026

Each February, schools celebrate Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month. Career and Technical Education refers to the practice of teaching students specific career skills through hands-on learning experiences.

At Umatilla School District, students are learning these skills in a variety of ways, through classes, presentations, projects, and competitions. Career and Technical Education is valuable because it offers students an opportunity to build knowledge outside of regular classroom learning. Additionally, it can help students make determinations about what they may want to do in the future.

The Exploring Trades (MS) and Robotics (HS) classes are two courses that students are particularly fond of. Recently, energy was buzzing in the new Career and Technical Education building that is shared by Umatilla High School and Clara Brownell Middle School. Student teams are preparing for the upcoming State Robotics Competition, though some candidly admit: the process can be more stressful than exciting.

Two students were able to take a few minutes to discuss their own experiences with Career and Technical Education.

“It allows people to explore different skillsets. I learned a lot of engineering, teamwork, and mechanical skills while working on robots. My favorite thing about preparing for competition is just seeing the progress made since we first started. I would definitely consider working with robotics in the future.”

Wyatt Wilhelm, Freshman

A younger student also spoke to the benefits of Career-Technical Education as well.

“The more you do in class, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you can do later in the future. This is a great class because it adds a lot of different things to your knowledge base. One of the projects I enjoyed the most was designing and printing chess pieces, which we did earlier this year.”

Matt Collet, 8th Grade

This is the sixth year that Career and Technical courses have been offered at the middle-school level. High school Robotics teacher Caden Sipe expresses the importance of this change:

“It’s nice to have these courses offered at the middle-school level. It creates new opportunities and gives students exposure to careers they may not have known existed. Once they make it to more advanced classes, students can do things like read a measuring tape correctly and they have a better idea of what they are doing.”

Arik Russell teaches Exploring Trades at the middle school level.

“Teaching certain concepts at the middle school level is nice because for some, it is easier to pick up new skills early on rather than later in life. My class helps prepare students for the workforce by teaching hard skills like CAD, geometry, and basic electrical work. We develop soft skills as well, like collaboration and problem-solving. We also have a ‘Careers’ unit, where students explore different aspects of their personalities and try to find careers where they could successfully incorporate those personality traits.”

When asked about how the community can support students and educators in Career and Technical education, Russell shared two things:

“It’s helpful for educators to know the skills different industries are looking for, and what sort of skills new employees would need to know. For students, we know they respond well to having industry professionals come in and illustrate the things they do and experience on a daily basis.”

This February would be a great opportunity to show support to our amazing students and staff who make Career and Technical Education possible in our District. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Support upcoming Robotics Competitions (February 28-March 1, 2026)

  • Give a presentation about your job/industry

  • Work with your organization to allow a student to ‘shadow’ you at your workplace

  • Offer paid summertime student internships

Learn more about the Career and Technical Education Opportunities in the Umatilla School District: