Carencro High Lures Aspiring Techies
New academy offers high-tech education.

Richard Burgess
rburgess@theadvertiser.com
August 18, 2004

Photos by P.C. Piazza/ppiazza@theadvertiser.com Garrett Derouen sits Monday morning in computer lab with teacher Katrina Smith at Carencro High.

Small brown signs posted outside the rooms read “typing,” “shorthand” and “bookkeeping.”

Inside, a select group of high school students sat down on their first day of school Monday in technology labs, where they’ll study digital photography, computer networking and multimedia production.

“I really like computers and want to become a video game designer,” said 14-year-old Garrett Derouen, who came to the academy from Carencro Middle School.

He is one of 72 students enrolled at the academy, one of 10 “schools of choice” in Lafayette Parish that offer specialized classes in a particular field.

The schools of choice accept students from throughout the parish who meet admission criteria.
The technology academy, which started this year, aims to prepare students for the “digital work force,” said academy Director Kit Becnel, who also teaches there.

“We want these students to have top-notch training,” she said. “We’re the flagship of the parish for technology in the school system.”

In teacher Katrina Smith’s computer technology literacy class, students on Monday got a taste of what’s to come.

The classroom is stuffed with computers. In the coming year, Derouen and others will move from one terminal to the next as they work through lessons on computer graphics, computer troubleshooting, digital sound, digital photography and computer network administration, to name a few.

“There’s no way you can get a college degree in all of these. You’d have to live to be a hundred,” Smith told the class. “It’s about trying a little bit of everything to see what you like.”

She said that as students at the academy progress, they will have the opportunity to narrow the focus of their studies to a particular area — Web development, computer network management, computer programming.

“With all the options, I can see what I’m into,” Derouen said.

The academy’s program also includes a required summer technology internship between the junior and senior years, Becnel said, and current plans call for job shadowing of technology workers and a mentor program.

“We want real-life situations,” she said.

The technology-focused students take regular classes at Carencro High School but spend most of their time in the section of the school devoted to the academy, where they take specialized computer classes and core subjects taught by teachers who have been trained to integrate technology into their lessons.

“We’re a school within a school,” Becnel said.

©The Lafayette Daily Advertiser
August 18, 2004