Gallery • 3 Photos

By Grace Brookshire

Senior Carson Howe shows a shirt from the Catty Shack to the 8th graders.

All eighth graders got a chance to take a tour of the new CTEC building on Wednesday, January 26, and also got introduced to some of the clubs, staff and organizations that Mill Valley and DeSoto high school offer. 

After the new Cedar Trails Exploration Center, CTEC, building was built in Lenexa last year, high school students have been given the opportunity to learn skills and take classes that the Mill Valley and DeSoto campuses do not offer. Since the CTEC program is new, getting the word out to incoming freshmen is very important. 

Tours and information booths on various different school departments were run by De Soto and Mill Valley students. 

Senior Ryan Layton, one of the students giving tours of the CTEC building, said that many of the eighth graders expressed excitement about the classes offered there. 

“I think seeing a lot of the high-tech stuff we have out there was really cool for them because the middle school engineering classes don’t offer anything like what we have,” Layton said. “But I think their reaction to it was very, very excited, knowing that in high school, they’ll be able to do this kind of stuff.”

Eighth grader Evie Tindell said that she has plans to take one or two of the classes at CTEC. 

“I want to take the graphic design class and maybe the biology class, the lab looks awesome,” Tindell said.

Because the incoming freshmen don’t know about what CTEC has to offer, the eighth grade tours helped raise awareness about what courses would be available to them in the near future.

“I think there is going to be a lot more participation in the engineering classes here and at De Soto because they know that during their freshmen and sophomore years they need to do those engineering classes before they’re able to go to CTEC,” Layton said. “In two years, CTEC will have more participation because [incoming freshman have toured the building and learned about the classes] but right now we’re only about 50% capacity of students in the classes.”

Student volunteers in charge of running the department information tables also got to interact with the eighth graders. Eighth graders got to go around and choose which clubs and classes they would like to know more about and how to start the path to reach their high school goals. 

Tindell said that she was interested in learning more about several clubs offered at Mill Valley.

“I really want to do yearbook and newspaper when I can and I’ve heard Mill Valley has a ‘Gay-Straight Alliance’ club so maybe that as well,” Tindell said.