The Bristol Warren Regional School District (BWRSD) announced last week that they had received approval from the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) for two new accredited career and technical education (CTE) pathways at Mt. Hope High School.

Beginning in the Fall of 2024, students will be able to begin an educational track in Audio & Video Production and Graphic Communication Design. Once those begin, Mt. Hope will have a total of five CTE programs available for students. The three existing programs are Business & Finance, Architecture & Construction, and Engineering.

According to a press release sent out by the district, Mt. Hope currently has 306 students enrolled in the existing three CTE pathways. Interviewed about the new additions on Friday, STEM Department Chair Wayne Lima said that existing student interest in the courses helped make it an easy decision to pursue the two new tracks for full RIDE accreditation.

“Both of them are, in a way, existing pathways for us. There are already classes associated with these two programs, so for us it wasn’t a very big lift to get them approved,” he said. “So we already had 90 percent of the requirements in place, with the most important one being student interest. These classes have been running for years not under a CTE program, but with high student enrollment each year.”

According to the release, there are already 105 students enrolled in classes associated with the new pathways, which includes courses such as Digital Audio Recording, Video Production and Media Communication, and various levels of graphic design.

Maureen Gauthier, CTE Coordinator for the BWRSD, said that students will be able to learn how to utilize in-demand pieces of software, such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere, through the coursework, which will provide them with skills needed for many jobs either right out of high school or as they advance towards a post-graduate degree. She said that students could also earn professional certificates in tools such as Photoshop, and will have a variety of work-based learning opportunities throughout the courses to test their skills and provide real-world experience going into the job market.

As the district looks ahead to the construction of a new Mt. Hope High School, Lima and Gauthier said that envisioning the classroom spaces for these CTE programs is front of mind for administrators and teachers at the school.

“That’s going to be the exciting part,” Gauthier said. “Where we will get the teachers of the courses as well as our industry partners to really help us design our classrooms in order to meet industry standards…It’s so important to make sure we have the programs in place before we build the new school.”

Lima said that the district was already looking ahead at two more programs that could potentially be added to the accredited CTE offerings next year.

“Stay tuned,” he said.