>> Health Sciences (pictured at right):
45 students
>> Culinary Skills (pictured below): 16 students
>> Transportation, Distribution and Logistics: five students
To excite and educate people about the little known business of logistics, United Parcel Service borrowed the playful 1953 Dean Martin song, “That's Amore,” for a new TV ad.
A small group of Millard high school students could probably hum a few bars.
The students spend a good part of each day studying logistics — basically how to move things efficiently from here to there and keep track of them along the way.
The students attend the new Transportation, Distribution and Logistics Academy that opened this year at Millard Horizon High School along with two other academies: Health Sciences and Culinary Skills. That makes a total of six academy options for Millard students: the Finance, Education and Entrepreneurship Academies are offered at the district's three other high schools.
The academies are part of a trend in Nebraska high schools to offer more career-oriented programs that allow students to earn college credit or gain initial certification to jump-start careers in high-demand fields.
Horizon High Principal Angie Mercier said the academy students are “good, solid students,” many of whom have decided that the hands-on instruction and potential for college credit offered in the academies is a better path for them than taking Advanced Placement classes.
The $9.2 million high school, near 208th and Q Streets, opened to students last January. In addition to housing the three academies, it is the district's alternative high school.
Academy classes are taught by Millard teachers approved by the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Metropolitan Community College. Students pay reduced-rate tuition to earn dual-enrollment credit. Students attend their home high school half the day, and spend half a day at the academy. The two-year programs are for juniors and seniors.
Many more students are enrolled in the Health Sciences Academy — 45 compared to just five in logistics. But instructors say that logistics is a fast-growing career field and that graduates will have a leg up in the world of shipping and tracking products as businesses try to operate more efficiently to save money.
Logistics careers are a good fit in Nebraska, they say, because the state's central location makes it ideal as a transportation hub.
The UPS ad makes logistics look cool and cutting edge. Instead of Martin crooning about “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's amore,” a female singer warbles such rhymes as “When it's planes in the sky for a chain of supply that's logistics” and “When the parts for the line come precisely on time that's logistics.”
Millard North High junior Jeff Rodis and his logistics academy classmates say a key attraction to the program was the opportunity to earn college credit.
Rodis intends to go to college and eventually work in supply-chain management. He enjoys the hands-on class work.
In the classroom, students work with a model that demonstrates radio frequency identification, which is a product-scanning technology that shows promise as a more efficient alternative to bar code scanners.
Products are marked with a computer chip that emits a radio signal. They travel down a conveyor belt and pass through sensors that read the tag and display information about the product on a computer screen. Unlike bar codes, the system reads multiple tags at once.
Academy instructor Ben Brachle said the technology can be applied to any business that moves things from Point A to Point B: retail sales, business-to-business, manufacturing. Imagine, instructors say, filling your shopping cart with goods and pushing it out the door, no need to stop and check out. With radio frequency identification, the store could tally your purchase remotely and debit your account.
Meantime, interest in the Health Sciences Academy “blew us away,” said Barb Waller, the district's coordinator for career and technical education.
Millard West High junior Brianna Pigsley, 16, who wants to be an anesthesiologist, said the decision to enter the Health Sciences Academy was not easy.
Pigsley wanted a leg up on college, but academy classes would take up half her school day, leaving little room for other classes that interested her.
“I had to decide whether AP classes would be better on my college application or whether this would be better,” Pigsley said. “I decided this, because a lot of kids wouldn't have this. And I thought colleges would really like to see that.”
Pigsley said she hopes to work as a paramedic in college, gaining experience and earning money to help pay for college.
In the culinary arts classroom, chef Maybell Galusha recently had students cooking up desserts for a graduation ceremony. Students made buttery tartlets topped with chocolate ganache, mini German chocolate cupcakes, red velvet cupcakes and “tuxedo strawberries,” which involves dipping berries in white and brown chocolate so they look like they're wearing tuxedos.
Galusha said that the wide variety of restaurants and TV cooking shows have raised awareness of cooking as a profession. Every dish the students make in the lab they must sample and critique, she said.
She said kids enjoy cooking in the well-equipped kitchen at Horizon High, though the math required when buying supplies and planning meals is still unappealing to some.
Greg Rogers, a junior, wants to be a chef at a fine dining restaurant. Already, his family wants to make the most of his education.
“Everyone wants me to cook for them now,” Rogers said.
Contact the writer: 444-1077, joe.dejka@owh.com
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