{"id":16688,"date":"2025-09-03T18:57:35","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-high-school-to-host-annual-industry-convening-in-september\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:59:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:59:57","slug":"montezuma-cortez-high-school-to-host-annual-industry-convening-in-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-high-school-to-host-annual-industry-convening-in-september\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez High School to host annual Industry Convening in September"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez High School will host its annual Industry Convening in September in an effort to find more industry partners to collaborate with its Career and Technical Education programs. The goal is to give students a kick-start to their careers once they graduate. (Journal file photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez High School will host its first Industry Convening at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23, in the MCHS Auditorium. The event aims to connect local businesses with the school\u2019s Career and Technical Education programs.<\/p>\n

The convening will showcase new and existing CTE offerings and promote collaboration with local businesses to help prepare students for successful careers after graduation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really want to get people involved and really talk about different ways to engage with each of these programs,\u201d said Brandon Thurston, Career and Technical Education director and assistant principal.<\/p>\n

Students in the National FFA Organization already work with community mentors on supervised agricultural experiences. Other programs are seeking similar partnerships for internships and future job placements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose (FFA) kids frequently have mentors in the community, or they\u2019re going out and working with business owners on their supervised agricultural experiences,\u201d Thurston said. \u201cSo, when they\u2019re doing that, it\u2019s trying to build those partnerships, helping the kids get mentors and potentially internships, job placements and those kinds of things. With FFA, they may be traveling, doing interviews, showing something, but they may have a mentor back home that\u2019s coaching them through that. That\u2019s not necessarily the teacher, but it\u2019s an industry partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo really, that\u2019s kind of the heart of it, trying to build industry partnerships around each of our career\/technical education programs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Local business owners, community members and parents are invited to explore CTE programs and learn how they can get involved by offering internships, mentorships and other opportunities. The goal is to align industry partners with programs that prepare students for high-demand, often high-wage careers.<\/p>\n

CTE pathways seeking industry partners include business, construction trades, engineering\/STEM, computer science with a focus on graphic arts and design, athletic training\/health care, culinary\/hospitality and a revised theater program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got kids going out in the community all the time, and that\u2019s been some wonderful partnerships with locals,\u201d Thurston said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to get more people involved \u2026 we want to give kids as rich of an experience as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event will also highlight local job opportunities, including careers such as electricians and plumbers that offer strong earnings without requiring a college degree. The invitation is open not only to business owners, but also to community members and parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be the owner of a business. It could be a parent of a kid who\u2019s employed somewhere and wants to check it out. Maybe they work for an engineering firm, and they talk to their boss and they\u2019re like, \u2018Hey, this is a cool program,\u2019\u201d Thurston said. \u201cWe really just want to open this up and share what\u2019s going on and invite people into the school to see what\u2019s going on with these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, contact Thurston at brandon.thurston@cortez.k12.co.us<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To attend, register online at http:\/\/bit.ly\/IndustryConvening<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

is looking for industry partners to provide mentorship, internships and more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,21,155,28,60,36,216,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-cortez","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16688"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20337,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16688\/revisions\/20337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16688"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}