William H. Turner Technical Arts High School, commonly referred to as Turner Tech, is a secondary technical school located at 10151 NW 19th Avenue in West Little River, unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida.[1] Turner Tech sits behind Miami Central High School. The principal of the school is Ms. Lavette Hunter.
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Turner Tech was founded in 1993 and was named after William H. Turner, former chairperson of the Miami-Dade County School Board and was a former member of the Florida State Legislature. Turner, along with Roger C. Cuevas (a former Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent) had a dream to construct a school that would provide academic and technical skills to prepare youth for the 21st Century. Turner Tech operates as a small high school with approximately 1,800 students.
Turner Tech is a technical school that teaches students a few skills of different kind of jobs in the fields their Academies encounter. Turner Tech is one of the first high schools to separate each job criteria in different branches. The academies are Industrial/Entertainment Technology (IET), Agriscience (AG), Academy of Information Technology and Entrepreneurship (AITE), Health, Finance, Public Service, Construction Management and Architectural Technology(CMAT). Students work in groups within each academy.
The academic course is integrated into the career major the student has chosen. Students chose a career academy when they enter the school during their freshman year. By successfully completing a sequence of technical courses, they gain certification(s) in one or more related careers.
All students assemble an active career portfolio, which includes examples of their individual work. Under each of the academies, students participate in a mass amount of hands-on experiences in actual workplaces and school-based interests.
For each Academy comes a different shirt and different color. The corresponding colors are:
IET: Jade
Health: Navy Blue
Agriscience: Forest Green
AITE: Light Blue
CMAT: Teal
Publice Service: Gray
Finance: Burgundy
Turner Technical Arts HS is 50% Black, 45% Hispanic, 4% White, and 1% Other.[2]
The academy of Construction Management and Architectural Technology. This academy is all about the building industries and design concepts. It is divided in to two parts. Architectural Drafting and Building Construction Technology. The students in the Architectural Drafting take blue print reader, and Auto CAD classes. They learn to read and interoperate floor plans and how to produce general, electrical, elevations, interior plans. Students also learn mechanical drafting as well. The students in building construction learn all of the rules regulations of masonry work, they also are hands on learning by building out of concrete and cement.
Skills USA
CMAT has skills USA as a way to show what they have learned. The architectural drafting students get to compete in drafting competitions in different divisions, weather its house or mechanical. Also the masonry students get to have construction competitions as well.
The academy of Industrial Entertainment Technology is an academy that is all about Television Broadcasting and Television Production and most importantly creativity. What IET does, is get footage for films, edit the films, make news broad casts, and do a variety of independent movies to submit to competitions. IET is also divided into two different sub-categories: Film and Television Production.
'Skills USA
IET's skills USA is a completion in which the students compete with what they've learned. The students compete with other schools on speed editing, broadcasting, script making, etc. Basically skills is one of the main competition to show what we are made of.
The Agriscience Academy, or Ag for short, encourages students to play a role in society that deals with Agriculture such as livestock and horticulture. In the Animal Science and Services program, students handle livestock such as cattle, in order to better understand the Meat industry as well as the veterinary field of large animals. Animals included pigs, sheep, steers (a castrated bull calf) and breeding cattle. Students also attend local fairs like the Miami-Dade County Fair and the State Fair in Tampa. In order for this to be possible, the students have to join FFA or Future Farmers of America. FFA allow students to learn leadership skills and parliament procedures. Tractor driving and Speech is also part of the FFA. This part of the academy, according to students, is one of the best, the smelliest, and the most profitable.
Students spend about 3 to 10 months (including weekends, holidays, and no-school days) taking care of several SAE projects. The students exercise, bathe, and feed the animals. They also clean the animals' pens. After that, the students take the animals to local fairs. There, the students exhibit the animals to their potential using various equipments to handle the animals. Some competitions included Showmanship, Fitting and Grooming, and Market. The FFA students compete with each other and other FFA or 4H students of other agricultural schools in Florida, depending on the location of the fair. As soon as the fairs are over, the students must leave their animals because they raised the animals for meat; the animals are then sent to slaughter. Here are more information about the animals the students nurture:
Pigs Usually one of the first animals, along with lambs, that the students raise in their first year. Swine are very intelligent and very excited animals. They can range from 180 pounds to 250 pounds. The male pigs come castrated when the students purchases their hogs. Castrated male pigs are called barrows. The breed normally used are Yorkshire crosses and Hampshire crosses.
Lambs Usually one of the first animals, along with pigs, that students raise as their first SAE project. Lambs are the most vulnerable projects in the Ag. Academy. They are easily killed by dogs. Students learn to castrate male lambs, which are called wethers. They also learn to sheer the sheep, taking the wool off the animal with a pair of clippers.
Steers A castrated bull calf that ranges from the ages of 8 months to 2 years. These animals are usually given to the juniors and seniors of the program. Students can have up to two of these animals. Steers range from 850 pounds to 1250 pounds or higher. Students learn to "halterbreak" or having the animal accustom to a halter and the students themselves. Steers range in different personalities. Some like to ram and kick any student that comes near; others are either gentle or timid but easy to work with. The steers are the most costly animals. They usually cost between $500 to $1,000. Students receive their steers from Florida ranches that sell steers.
The academy also offers a veterinary assisting course. In this course, the students raise poultry, goats, rabbits, and guinea pigs. Unlike the animal science animals, these animals are not sold for market so the students that buy animals can keep them if they choose after the fair. The students compete every year at the Miami-Dade Fair in showmanship, breed i.d., fitting and grooming, and the different shows(where the animal gets a 1st, 2nd, 3rd place and the best get special awards like best of breed and best in show).
The Academy of Public Service is divided into two different divisions, Criminal Justice and Teachers Assistants. The second top academy at Turner Tech the Public Service Academy serves the community. Both academic programs are joined in yearly competitions against other schools in the Florida Public Service Association (FPSA). In the 2008-09 competition Steven Ramos, a senior in the Public Service Criminal Justice program, served as State President. That same year, Turner Tech Criminal Justices students placed 3rd in top school for the Criminal Justice program, while the Teacher Assistant program placed 5th. Currently Ms. Day Dawning Rawls oversees the Criminal Justice Program for the high school students and helps advance their fields in the Criminal Justice program. The Criminal Justice Program also offers many opportunities for high school seniors, from internships with the Miami-Dade Correctional Facility to becoming a City of Miami Police Explorer or a City of North Miami Beach police explorer. The Public Service is one of the best academies for students ready to take on the Criminal Justice or Teacher Assistant fields.
Turner Tech was recognized as one of America's top 10 New American High Schools in an awards course sponsored by Business Week and McGraw-Hill Educational and Professional Publishing Group in cooperation with the National Center for Research in Vocational Education and the Office of Vocations and Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education. The United States Department of Education with the Big Picture Company, funded by the School to Work Opportunities Act of 1994, identified Turner Tech as one of five urban high schools on the cutting edge of education reform.
The American Federation of Teachers highlighted Turner Tech as one of five national models of school restructuring that focus on helping students reach high academic standards and prepare for good jobs. In 1999-2000, Turner Tech became one of the only 10 New Millennium High Schools in the state of Florida.
In 2006, Steve Pierre helped Turner Tech be selected as one of the winners of the Got Milk? Healthiest Student Bodies Contest. Got Milk received nearly 1,500 contest entries from schools across the country and a panel of judges selected Turner Tech as one of the top 50 Healthiest Student Bodies in the nation. Turner Tech received a $1,000 grant to fund health, wellness, PE and fitness and nutrition programs.
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