News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Putnam County School System plans to have its Jobs And Career Exploration for Everyone (JACEE) bus on the road by spring.
The bus will visit elementary and middle schools so students can have access to different equipment and CTE programs. Putnam County Schools CTE Supervisor Jackie Vester said the goal is to allow students to explore the 16 career clusters offered at the high school and get career focused early on.
“I think that the biggest benefit that this bus is going to provide is getting that messaging out,” Vester said. “Hitting those students when there in elementary school, hitting those students when there in middle school, going to family engagement events and including the parents on some of those discussion with their students on what they want to do for a career.”
The bus will feature state of the art training materials like a virtual welder, VR headset, WIFI and several television screens so students can watch instructional videos.
The school system has hired an outside service to install the carpet, monitors and television screens. Vester said the next step over the next few weeks will be the outside of he bus.
“We are going to have it custom wrapped, so that it’s bright and colorful on the outside,” Vester said. “It no longer looks like a school bus. It’s going to look like the JACEE Bus. Once that’s complete we hope to do a ribbon cutting and a roll out this spring.”
Vester said to put into to perspective how much money the bus will save, the VR headsets alone would cost $20,000 per school. She said now the school system just needs a set for the bus, and the bus can come to the students.
Vester said the best feature is its versatility.
“If a school is having a STEM night then we can focus the stations on the bus to be STEM associated, but if the next family engagement they would like for us to focus on the health science area we can equip the bus with the health and sciences program of study item,” Vester said. “If we tried to have little bits of all 16 career clusters at every middle school you could see how that would add up.”
Vester said they are working on several stations still including hands-on stations involving electrical work and plumbing. She said another program will allow students to put on a VR headset and experience what a day in that job would be like. She said the bus will also allow for virtual field trips to businesses to see day-to-day operations.
