Texarkana’s new elementary school setting kids on the path to careers

TEXARKANA, Texas (KTAL/KMSS) — Texarkana ISD‘s Parks Elementary has opened its doors to its first batch of students as the new school year started on Wednesday, August 6th. The school was constructed as part of the 2022 bond package to replace the Spring Lake Park and Highland Park Schools. It can hold 800 students.

“All year last year, I would go from one campus to the other, and just really joining the teachers together, joining the culture together, and joining our kids together. So that this year we could start off and everybody knew everybody and collaborated together well,” says Audrey Shumate, principal at Parks Elementary.

One of the primary goals of the bond package is to expand Career and Technical Education (CTE) in the district. This is something that Parks will be a big part of as a CTE elementary school.

“It’s new and it’s innovative. It’s one of its kind. We just want to give our kids the exploration and the curiosity to see different careers, to be exposed to different careers, to be able to ask questions about how a light switch works. Who did that? How does that work… And our HVAC system, and who did that, and how does it work?” says Shumate.

To accomplish this, they will be using technology and learning directly from people involved in various career fields, but it is not just supplemental. CTE will be a core class.

“Our 3rd graders rotate classes: math, reading, science, CTE. So the CTE teacher is just like our math teacher, it’s just like our reading teacher, they’re just as important,” says Shumate.

The hope is to give students a head start at figuring out what they want to be when they grow up, and set them on the right path.

“Our big words right now are exploration and curiosity. What we’re hoping graduate outcomes for our 5th graders are that they leave here thinking I can do this, this is where I want to go, and just having a sense of this interests me and having a goal for high school and beyond,” says Shumate.