Beyond The Bell: OKCPS Career Academy

At high school football games, the production crew captures all the action live.

“We have three different cameras set up and we have two of them up high and one down low,” explained a crew member.

The cameras catch the best shots, the director makes the call, and then everyone in the audience gets to see it all on the big screen.

But the best part of all this – it’s done by students. They’re enrolled in Oklahoma City Public Schools’ Academy of Information Technology.

“They work with top of the line equipment. They basically have a full blown video production company in house at Southeast High School,” said teacher Tom Trammell.

Similar to a tech school, the academies allow students to tackle their career interests.

“It opens up a lot of opportunities that I don’t think I could get at other schools,” said student Liberty Pryor.

“With this training, right now I could go work for the Thunder or Sooner Vision,” explained student Jordan Ramirez.

There are 12 career academies at various high schools in the district including law and public safety, health sciences, engineering, hospitality and tourism and finance.

Students have to apply and be accepted to the academies, and then the work to get them ready for the real world begins.

“They do job shadowing, they do career exploration and then by the time they’re juniors we do interview and resumes to help them get ready for that internship between their junior and senior year,” said National Academy Foundation’s Kate Haydon.

“This is a national best practice. It’s been in business across the country for several years and there are models all over where it’s shown to be successful,” Haydon told News 9.

The academies are funded by CareerTech and the school district.