Construction teacher supports math, communication
Sam Houston High School construction teacher Jeramy Guillory hit the ground running with his students this year to make sure they have the skills they need to be career ready.
The veteran teacher brought his 20 years of experience teaching and in construction to the CTE construction classes there this year, and is now bringing projects to life while helping his students in the areas of math and communication.
Before coming to San Antonio to be closer to family during the pandemic, he taught five years in Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, where, following Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, he got an early lesson in virtual instruction, and his classes ultimately ended up in the field, helping rebuild homes damaged by the hurricane.
Now, working with a different kind of hurricane on a small budget, he and his 18 students in the Construction I, Construction II and Practicum classes built six doghouses which will be sold to buy the supplies to finish a tiny house in the spring. The doghouses were a lesson in residential framing, which Guillory says can earn his students $20 an hour.
“There’s a huge demand for framers and carpenters,” Guillory said. “When we built these doghouses, it was exactly how you would frame a house.”
While they were building the houses, which he hopes will sell for $300-$500 each, the students were reinforcing skills in math by calculating the rafters, converting fractions to decimals, and inches to feet to get their supplies.
Nationwide, students are struggling from gaps in core areas caused by the pandemic, and Guillory is doing his part to fill them while engaging the students in hands-on lessons.
“Especially coming back from COVID, a lot of students are struggling with verbal communication skills,” he said.
In response, he spends 15-20 minutes in every class period leading exercises in communication.
The lessons are paying off. Recently, in one 90-minute class, his upper-level students created props for the theatre department for its upcoming production of A Christmas Carol. With designated team members for measuring, sawing and power tools, they created a desk with casters that converts to a bed and a bookshelf that converts to a headboard within a single class period.
Culinary arts teacher helps students earn manager certifications
For Chef Janel Ortega, hospitality doesn’t end in the kitchen. It’s a way of life.
And that’s how she instructs her 55 dual credit and practicum culinary arts students at Sam Houston High School, giving them a global picture of the importance and history of food, all the while equipping them in record numbers for the ServSafe Manager certification.
A chef for 12 years before beginning her teaching career eight years ago, she loves the opportunity to share knowledge of food with her students.
“I love that I’m still able to be with food and share my love of cooking with students,” Ortega said. “I love food and teaching people about food.”
But it’s more than just food. Admittedly teaching them more than they think they’re going to learn, Ortega works in lessons in anthropology, science, nutrition, law and horticulture. The class has a garden where they cultivate herbs and seasonal vegetables.
“Students don’t understand our food system until they see something sprout from the ground,” Ortega said.
With this wealth of knowledge, she’s empowering them for college and careers. Students in her dual credit classes earn up to 12 credit hours at St. Philip’s College or up to a full first semester of credit at the Culinary Institute of America — an accomplishment worth $16,400.
Throughout all her classes, she weaves in information about food safety, sanitation, and the other aspects of the ServSafe Manager curriculum, allowing her students to naturally build the knowledge to get manager certified while they learn to prepare different foods. She tracks her students' progress in mastering the content, and students can test for the certification throughout the year. Four of her seniors are already certified this year, and she plans to test all 15 in her practicum class and even some of her juniors. Her goal is to have 20 students earn manager certification, ready for managerial jobs in the industry.
“The manager certified students can get higher paying jobs,” she said. “They can go in as a manager instead of a line cook. A Starbucks manager can make $60,000 per year. They can do that and pay for college.”