By Erica Kulash

Reporter

Summit Technology Academy is a program offered to prepare South students who are already interested in pursuing a certain career path.

Jeremy Bonnesen recently visited South to inform students what STA offers and how to apply for it their junior and senior years here. He shared that STA is a program that provides advanced and accelerated college and career preparation for high schoolers.  STA is a national model recognized by President Obama as well as other national and state leaders for its innovation in preparing students for college and careers.  It was made to provide a unique experience for students seriously interested in advanced preparation for their career fields and college readiness.  Students from 20 different high schools in the Kansas City area attend STA. It provides rigorous programs of study that blend classroom instruction with real-world, hands-on opportunities to connect with professionals from over 200 business partners in high demand career fields. Business professionals and university partners from these fields regularly provide input to keep STA curriculum on the cutting edge of what industry demands.  Students are able to receive industry recognized credentials, college credit as well as opportunity to begin a four-year degree as a junior in high school for four of their programs. STA offers opportunities in four career pathway areas:  engineering, computer science, health science, as well as international studies, education, and  digital media technology.

Counselor Mary Kenady spoke on who Summit Tech Academy targets.

“Summit Tech Academy benefits students who want an off-campus experience in a specific career field. It’s not for everyone. It’s for those kids that know for sure they want to major in networking, engineering, digital media technology, whatever it may be, they have to be really serious about what career field they want to enter,” Kenady said.

Savannah Schroeder is a South student in the nursing program at STA. She spoke on what she gets to do through the program.

“We get to go to the hospitals in a couple weeks to learn how to do basic care for patients. I’ve always had an interest in the medical field, and I thought this would help me experience it to help. I like the hands-on activities we’re offered,” Schroeder said.

Logan Hall, a South and STA student, recently earned a scholarship through Summit Tech and the MIC program for a paid internship this summer by a company funding that program.

“I always knew that I wanted to do something with computer programming; that’s just where my interests are, and once I learned about STA I looked into it and that was just where I wanted to put all my electives,” Hall said.

In March of 2016, Summit Tech Academy and Missouri Innovation Campus will start construction on a new $40-million building for their shared campus. It will be the first facility in the country where a university and a high school will collaborate on the same programs in the same building. If you’re interesting in attending STA, you can apply online at http://sta.lsr7.org/enroll-now/