Ask a ninth grader what they want to do with their life, and most will give you an honest answer: They have no idea. That’s not a failure of ambition. It’s a failure of opportunity. Most students spend four years of high school guessing at a future they’ve never actually touched — never wired a circuit, never taken a blood pressure reading on a mannequin, never sketched a logo for a real client, and never walked a show barn at 6 a.m. before first period. They pick a college major, sometimes a career, based on almost nothing.
At Idaho Technical Career Academy (ITCA), a free public charter school with open enrollment, we built our school around a different idea: Let students find their spark before they have to guess.
This year, ITCA is offering seven career and technical education pathways to students in grades 9 through 12 — Medical Assisting, Graphic Design, Business Management & Entrepreneurship, Pharmacy Technician, and Agriculture Leadership & Communications, joined this year by two new additions: Cybersecurity and Veterinary Technician. It’s seven different doors into seven different futures, and our students are walking through more than one before they graduate.
That’s the part people miss about a well-designed CTE program—it isn’t about picking a lane early and locking the door behind you. It’s about giving a fifteen-year-old room to try on a career like a jacket — see how it fits before ever signing a tuition check. Students can spend a semester in Pharmacy Technician, discover they love the precision of it, and go all the way through to certification. Or they can discover it’s not for them, and pivot into Graphic Design or Cybersecurity without losing a year, a dollar, or confidence. We’d rather students find out at sixteen that a field isn’t right for them than at twenty, thousands of dollars into a degree they didn’t want.
ITCA’s dual enrollment program makes that exploration real, not theoretical, letting any student — from a brick-and-mortar school to homeschool — try our courses to see what fits. ITCA students can take dual credit coursework tied directly to the pathway they’re interested in: Biology, Chemistry, Anatomy & Physiology, and Medical Terminology for a student exploring Medical Assisting or Pharmacy Technician; Professional Communications, Agricultural Experiential Learning, and Ag Communication & Leadership for a student in our Agriculture Leadership pathway. It’s not a watered-down “intro to careers” unit — it’s transferable, transcript-bearing college credit, earned through seven Idaho college partners — North Idaho College, the College of Western Idaho, the College of Eastern Idaho, the College of Southern Idaho, Idaho State University, Lewis-Clark State College, and the University of Idaho. A student can decide Anatomy & Physiology isn’t for them after all, pivot to a different pathway entirely, and still walk away with real college credit. That’s the difference between dabbling and committing.
The results are showing up in places that matter. On this year’s Idaho State Report Card, our science achievement grew nearly 15 percentage points year-over-year, our math proficiency climbed another 4.6 points, and our ELA scores continued their own upward trend. Our students earned 318 industry certifications last year across 26 different credential types — real, third-party validated proof that when a student finds their spark, they don’t just get inspired, they get qualified.
None of this happens by simple accident, or if we ask fourteen-year-olds to make permanent decisions with temporary information. It happens because we built a school that treats career exploration as a legitimate part of education, not a detour from it. Every pathway students sample, every dual enrollment credit they bank, every certification they earn is a real asset — whether they build a career in that exact field or discover their spark somewhere else.
Idaho’s students deserve more than a guess. They deserve to find out, credit in hand, before they decide. That’s what we’ve built at ITCA. That’s what “Find Your Spark” actually means.
Tony Hilde is the executive director of Idaho Technical Career Academy (ITCA), a free, public charter school serving Idaho students in grades 9 through 12.
