FLEMING CO., Ky. (LEX 18) — When you step through the doors of Fleming County High School it mimics an average high school. Classrooms, a gym, and a cafeteria.
The biggest difference? It also has a nursing floor, a student-run restaurant, an autobody shop, and a welding company—all inside to prepare students for their future.
It's called the Enterprise Education program. First implemented in 2017 after the school could no longer fund consumables. With a $15M grant, the school went through a big renovation, and that's where the enterprise education program comes in.
The program has 13 pathways and nine student-run enterprises, all at the school.
The enterprises are:
- Panther Bistro: Student-run restaurant that's open to the public on Thursdays.
- Apparel: Shop that sells spirit wear and other items created by students.
- Welding: Creates signs and other items for the school and community members.
- Floral: Creates arrangements and bouquets for students, the school and the community.
- Green House: Sells vegetables to Hidden Mills and rents out ferns for weddings.
- Automotive: Covers basic car fixtures, oil changes, tire changes, etc.
- Dog Grooming: Basic grooming
- Egg Subscription: The animal science pathway has their own chickens that lay eggs. Those eggs are then sold.
Each enterprise is taught by a content teacher, which allows the students to still receive the necessary math, science, and English classes. Alongside learning the basics, they also learn those skills related to their pathway.
In the welding class, Pease explains how students will earn beneficial certificates after graduation. Some of those certificates is OSHA-30, OSHA-10, NCCER Blue and basic NCC.
“My students would typically zone out in a math class, but now they know they’ll need that on the job a year after high school, two, three, five years down the road. They’re gonna pay attention more and want to learn," explains Bobby Pease, a math and agricultural teacher at Fleming County High School. “My students learn the leadership part of it as well as they run the shop [welding]. Matter of fact when I’m absent, the sub lets the students push the crew.”
It's not just the school helping these students; the community has also gathered around to lend a helping hand.
Principal Austin Hart explains that the equipment used at the Panther Bank, a student-run bank, was donated from a local bank. It's fully operational for students to use within the school, and teachers can even invest in vacation funds through it.
The overall goal of these pathways is that students will be able to run a fully functioning business right out of high school. It helps build up skills in and out of the classroom, along with increasing their want to be at school.
Pease stresses that students should know a four-year college doesn't have to be a demand. You can always choose a different route and be just as successful.
"I think it just makes me want to come to school. I really enjoy school, and yeah, I really enjoy waking up every day and coming to school. I don't really have anything bad to say about it," said Branson Hawkins, a sophomore welder at Fleming.
Students will choose a pathway of their interest starting freshman year and sometimes sophomore year. Within that pathway, they will choose a career or student-run enterprise within that pathway.
The more the students' skills progress each year, the more they will get promoted. By senior year, most of the students are running the company independently.
"It's a little weird cause I have more responsibility, it's a lot more responsibility because we have a lot of projects we're doing this year. Entrepreneurship, we have to talk to graduates out of high school to see what they're doing," explains Clayton Waymire, a senior and superintendent with the welding company.
"When they have a purpose to be here they have a purpose to do well in their content classes because if they don't, that's the classes that they get pulled from. If they are loving what they do at school, they are going to have an overall better experience," said Hart.
Hart also talked about a new program, interdisciplinary education, which will allow students to learn through different disciplines. For example, the freshman will do an archeological dig in their social studies class; they will proceed to complete carbon dating for it in science. Followed by linear equations in math about cost-effectiveness. Finally, a research paper on that dig in English.
Vibrant and real learning is the big focus for Fleming County High School this year and those to follow.
