Summit School District aims to structure a student’s learning experience in a way where they are working toward becoming a graduate who is prepped for the real world. 

By the time they get to high school, students are given opportunities to explore and get more insight into a variety of professions, including those in the medical, building, academic fields and more. Not only can students learn in the classroom, the district offers students opportunities to shadow and work with industry professionals throughout Summit County. Some students say this real-word experience opened them to different facets of the fields they are interested in and piqued their interest further. 

The district’s career and technical education offerings also provide students with the ability to get a head start. Students can gain college credits through partnerships with Colorado Mountain College and receive industry certifications so they can hit the ground running after graduation. 

As these three Summit School District graduates exit high school, they say they are grateful to be passionate about the careers they are looking to head into thanks to the role models they found along the way.

Sheccid Ramirez Solis

Sheccid Ramirez Solis knew what career pathway she wanted to take in life long before setting foot on a Summit School District campus. 

She said a career in special education has been her calling from a young age. Spending the first portion of her childhood in Peru alongside her younger brother, who has autism, she said the lack of fair educational opportunities in their public schools was felt by her family. She said it made for a situation where her brother wasn’t educated in the way he deserved to be. 

“I would like to change that system in Peru. … I love my country, my culture, but (the lack of special education is) something that I don’t like. I know there’s a lot of families there that also don’t have the opportunities (to put their child in special education),” she said. 

A class on early childhood education she took at the start of her senior year helped solidify her plans for her future. She said that’s mostly thanks to teacher Anna Howden, who is also a school psychologist. Throughout the year, Solis got to shadow teachers at Frisco Elementary School and Silverthorne Elementary School. Additionally, she got certified as a special education teacher’s assistant through her classes.

Next year, she’ll be heading to the University of Colorado to pursue a degree in education, making her a first-generation college student. She said her grandparents and family back in Peru are ecstatic. She looks forward to being a bilingual resource in special education classrooms.

Josie Speerstra

An eighth-grade version of Josie Speerstra would be shocked to learn that by that time she graduated high school, she’d be gearing up to study computer science, she said.

Before learning from Summit High School’s computer science and business teacher, Rick Karden, she considered studying the topic to be out of the cards for her.

“I was convinced that I was never going to be a computer science major because I’m not good at math,” she said. “Particularly when it comes to more advanced math, so I was like ‘OK, so I can’t do engineering or computer science.’ But taking his classes kind of changed the way that I thought about all of that.”

She said he was able to teach introduction to computer science and the classes that follow it in a way where people unfamiliar with the topic could understand it, and this helped break down the barrier she felt before. Karden helped show students the variety of branches within the umbrella of computer science, including fashion technology, forensic science and architectural design.

Speerstra has been able to take courses like those for video game design and Advanced Placement classes in cybersecurity. She also served as the vice president of the high school’s technology club and qualified for national competitions in the past two years.

She said she’s come to learn computer science is for people who enjoy problem solving and critical thinking, and she hopes others come to realize that and aren’t dissuaded like she was.

Next fall, she’ll be attending the Colorado School of Mines to study computer science, with plans to take a cybersecurity and data science track.

Annabel Bovaird

Next fall, graduate Annabel Bovaird will start a program at the Colorado University Boulder for integrative physiology, and she’ll walk into that environment with Emergency Medical Responder, CPR and “Stop the Bleed” certifications.

She started showing interest in the health science class freshman year. Her interest was first piqued by a medical terminology class. She said she this class is invaluable and loops students into the vocabulary universally used within the field.

Her health sciences classes gave her a look at numerous different aspects of the medical field. She shadowed nurses and doctors at nursing homes and hospitals and was able to see their work in action.

She said she considers herself lucky to have had Dr. Daniel Worrell with Common Spirit Summit Orthopedics to shadow. It gave her a better idea of what she might want to do someday. She shadowed Dr. Worrell during a femur repair surgery, receiving a play-by-play from pre-operations to the surgery complete with descriptions of the medical equipment he was using. She also was able to shadow a surgeon at a cadaver lab at a hospital in Vail for a day.

She said this insight into the world of surgeons revealed the most enticing career path she had come across yet.

Aside from work-based learning opportunities and certifications under her belt, she also was on a team at Summit High School that finished in the top 10 at the state’s Health Occupations Students of America competition.

She said she hasn’t landed on what type of medical professional she wants to be, but right now she is planning on following up CU Boulder with either medical school or a physician assistant program.