Career, technology, agriculture and education (CTAE) pathways classes are moving out of the Larry Walker Education Center and into Gilmer High School, as renovations and construction of the Performing Arts Center continue.
There are 15 pathways that around 70 to 75 percent of highschoolers are involved in. CTAE works in conjunction with the College and Career Academy, to prepare students for life after graduation.
“We’re just working toward getting our kids ready for the workforce and getting them credentialed in their pathways, so when they leave here, they can either go straight to work or they can take those credits they have and apply them to [college],” CTAE Director Eric Stoker said.
Students take three classes to complete each pathway. Public safety, construction, early childhood education, audio-visual, work-based learning and dual enrollment are some of the pathways they can choose from. Stoker explained that after the classes, they take an end-of-pathway assessment.
Most of the pathways are already located at the high school, but public safety, early childhood education and family and consumer science classes are taken at the Larry Walker Education Center.
“We’re doing some renovations this summer, and our public safety and early childhood [pathways] would move to the high school next year,” Stoker said. “Once the Performing Arts Center is built, our family and consumer science teacher will be moving up there.”
Gilmer County Schools district leaders are working to get all of the pathway students and teachers together in the same building. He said in previous years, they discussed moving the entirety of the CTAE program to the Larry Walker Education Center, but with the addition of the Performing Arts Center and renovations, they decided to move them all to the high school.
“They are going to take the theater and renovate it to have public safety and early childhood education labs in there, because the theater is going to be moved out to the Performing Arts Center,” Stoker explained.
Band, chorus and drama will all be moving there, so once construction is finished, the chorus and band rooms will be converted into additional CTAE labs, he noted.
According to Gilmer Schools Chief Operations Officer Thomas Griffith, remodeling the public safety and early childhood pathways is estimated to be completed during the fall semester of this year. The Performing Arts Center should open over summer of 2026. Remodeling the video broadcasting and certified nursing assistant pathways should be completed by fall of 2026.
Moving the pathways to the high school will prevent bus drivers from having to shuttle students to the center in between classes. Stoker added, “It’ll make it easier for me to see my teachers and get into their classrooms. Instead of having to drive back and forth, I can just be in one space and go.”
Besides the current three pathways located at the Larry Walker Education Center, it also houses some school district-level offices and is where students take night classes through the Mountain Innovation Program (alternate school).