JOANNA HAYES | jhayes@postregister.com
Kristen Dunnells (left) and Beverly Hott hold up the 2022 NAF Katherine Blasik Distinguished Academy banner that Idaho Falls’ Career and Technical Education Center received. The school’s 2023 banner will be awarded in July.
Courtesy Kristen Dunnells
Idaho Falls’ Career and Technical Education Center has been given NAF’s Katherine Blasik Distinguished title for the fourth straight year.
NAF is a national nonprofit organization that provides curriculum and resources to enhance the high school experience for students. NAF focuses on applicable skills that students can use directly after high school.
Idaho Falls School District 91 is the only district in Idaho to have an active NAF academy. District 91 offers its NAF program through the Career and Technical Education Center.
“Through this program, students can apply themselves a lot earlier in life. A lot earlier than I did,” said Kristen Dunnells, the lead teacher for the district’s NAF program.
Dunnells teaches business classes at Skyline High School. Some of her classes fill the requirements for students to complete the NAF business and technology academy.
A student going through the NAF academy can choose one of three pathways: finance, graphic design or programming. Each pathway has a total of four classes. The program also requires that a student work a paid internship and complete 120 hours there. In District 91, that job can count as the student’s senior project, a condition for graduation.
The district began offering NAF programs through CTEC in 2017. The program saw approximately 15 graduates its first year. In 2023, the program’s sixth year, it saw 98 graduates.
The program is offered to all District 91 high school students as well as high school students at Firth, Shelley and Ririe.
“Sometimes small schools can’t offer a wide variety of classes. Through this consortium, I can have a Firth student walk through my door,” Dunnells said.
Dunnells has been the lead teacher for the NAF program for two years and an NAF teacher at Skyline High School for six years. She said she has seen first-hand how the program has changed students’ lives.
Dunnells recalled one student’s success story. For his required internship, he worked in summer sales selling either solar panels or security systems. He used the money he made from that job to buy a duplex, remembering from his NAF classes that real estate is a good investment.
“He’s in his early 20s (now) and already owns property,” Dunnells said.
Dunnells said students go on to careers in areas such as accounting and entrepreneurship because of the foundational education they received through District 91’s NAF program.
NAF started in New York in 1980. For more than 40 years, the nonprofit has encouraged schools to transform the high school experience.
“NAF’s design is uniquely comprehensive in its approach to skill development, enabling students of all backgrounds to participate in a meaningful education and gives businesses the opportunity to partner with schools to shape America’s future workforce through career-relevant curricula and work-based learning experiences, including internships,” according to its website.
Each year it recognizes schools as Katherine Blasik Distinguished or NAF Model academies. With its fourth such recognition, the District 91 academy hopes to continue equipping students with valuable life skills.
“I just want to keep seeing students take the classes and then succeed,” Dunnells said.