"Bridging the gap": Tech students bring engineering love to middle-school students

PROVIDENCE — In Miss Roberta’s class, eighth-graders are hunched over robots the size of Rubik's cubes. Sitting next to them are their teachers, pre-engineering students from the Providence Career and Technical Academy.

In a first-ever pilot in Providence, career and tech students are getting paid $15 an hour to serve as mentors in West Broadway Middle School. The mission is twofold: to introduce middle schoolers to the magic of tech and to help ease the jitters of making the leap to high school.

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“The internships are about bridging the gap between middle and high school,” said Hope Fernandez, whose organization, Community Action Partnership of Providence, pays the students’ salaries. “It gives the PCTA kids an adult mindset. The middle school kids see the connection between middle and high school.”

Both sides benefit from the partnership.

PCTA students have to log 80 to 100 hours in a workplace internship where they not only deepen their expertise but learn soft skills such as punctuality, communication and showing initiative.

“We’re showing students that industry values their skills,” said Brett Dickens, director of career and technical education for the district. “It builds a connection to their future. This is a real job.”

'A sense of family'

Hyber Gamboa, a pre-engineering junior at PCTA, thinks of himself as a role model to his eighth-graders, someone who can guide them on the sometimes bumpy path to high school and beyond. He is also a cheerleader for career and tech education, extolling the opportunity for students to engage adults in a real-world setting.

“We need to help them figure out if they want to choose PCTA as a path,” he said during a conversation Tuesday at West Broadway.

Most eighth-graders choose a high school during the first semester, but Providence also offers a districtwide introduction to career and technical education during seventh grade.

“It gives us a sense of family,” said Jayla Tevyaw, who will attend Classical High School next year. “The PCTA kids help us with our expectations about going to high school so we will feel less alone.”

“It gives them the power of choice,” said their robotics teacher, Roberta Engle. “We want seventh- and eighth-graders to be aware of what’s possible.”

What PCTA offers it students

Career and technical education has come a long way from the vocational schools of the 1960s and '70s, which were often treated as a dumping ground for students who weren’t considered college material.

Seven high schools in Providence offer career and technical programs, with PCTA the most prominent.

PCTA offers 22 career strands, from pre-engineering to graphics, culinary to construction. The entire school serves as a classroom. Electrical students can pull down a ceiling and access the wiring above it. The culinary program has its own restaurant along with a commercial-grade kitchen.

Every student earns industry credentials in their major.

At PCTA, students have to demonstrate that they’re ready for an internship. Employers then rate them on the soft skills: punctuality, safety, and something called “coachability” – whether they are open to guidance from a manager.

The internship opportunities run the gamut from the Rhode Island School of Design to Tasca Automotive. A few years ago, PCTA students built a house from the ground up in the West End.

Going back to the West Broadway partnership, Dickens said, “It’s not telling someone what it’s like to be an engineer. It’s showing them.”

Linda Borg covers education for the Journal.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI career and tech students mentor West Broadway middle schoolers