Bus To Help With Career Ed In Cumberland

Cumberland County Schools rolling to its schools with a new bus where students can engage and experiment with different career possibilities.

Cumberland County Schools CTE Director Leslie Eldridge said the new bus is called the EPIC bus which stands for Everyone Pursues Innovative Careers. The bus contains 16 different occupations that kids can experiment with like a welding simulator and a blood pressure simulator. Eldridge said the bus will help kids all across the county have a better idea of what they want to do by the time they graduate high school.

“We really want to make those connections for students and make that transition smoother for them,” Eldridge said. “As we know everyone is thinking about what do I want to be when I grow up. We feel like if we can give them all the possibilities that we can, they can make more informed decisions on what they want to be when they grow up.”

Eldridge said Cumberland County Schools have seen an increase from 38 percent to 55 percent over the past year in career-ready graduates. Eldridge said the bus should help the school system’s goal of continuing to increase that percentage.

“It’s definitely based on the individual,” Eldridge said. “We want to prepare them you know, if you are going to a TCAT we want to give them the skills they need to go to TCAT. If they are going to a community college we want to give them the skills and what they need to be successful at each university level.  Then we also want to give them the skills through industry credentials where they can be successful by going straight into the workforce straight out of high school.”

Eldridge said they went with a bus over a facility so all nine elementary and middle schools could access the bus.

“Cumberland County is very spread out,” Eldridge said. “So we have schools from one end of our county to the other and it’s hard to have a designated area for our students to come to, so we thought we would take our careers to them.”

The bus has a unique look as it is blue with multiple drawings on the driver’s side. Eldridge said the school system held an art competition from each school and the winners had their drawings painted on the bus.