By Kristina Pritchett
City and Capistrano Unified School District officials celebrated a new culinary arts lab at Dana Hills High School with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Aug. 25.
Last year, a new program began at Dana Hills that allowed students to get hands-on experience at the Monarch Beach Resort. The students learned about different aspects of the hospitality industry.
Currently, there are 60 students in the program, officials said, and they’re able to learn about the restaurant, the front desk and more.
During the ribbon cutting ceremony, students made and served appetizers such as a red ribbon parfait, mini muffins and back to school frittatas.
“This is pretty exciting for me,” said Monarch Beach Resort Executive Chef Collin Thornton. “It all started in a room like this; I took a high school course when I was in grade 11 that catapulted me to where I am today.”
Thornton helped design the new classroom space with stainless steel appliances, new floors and everything else that would be used in an industry kitchen.
CUSD Superintendent Kirsten Vital told the crowd that career and technical education needs the focus.
“It’s not just career and technical education that is important, but to put investment dollars, grants and a team of classified staff on focusing on making sure our young people have an influential plan,” Vital said. “Whether that’s the military, a four-year college, a two-year college or a certificate program, we want to ensure that they are not sleeping on mom and dad’s couch,” Vital said.
She also said the goal to have such labs is to ensure the school district is keeping that promise.
Discussion about this post