The culinary arts kitchen at Pleasant Valley High School (PVHS) is buzzing with activity as students in chef’s jackets hand-mix chocolate cake batter in large bowls and carefully fill baking pans. There are eight stainless steel workstations, each with a commercial-grade stove/oven and exhaust hood, plus a prep area with a sink. In front of this array of student stations is a teaching station equipped with cameras linked to large screens for demonstrations. On other days, you might see students preparing various dishes across various cuisines, including searing craft pizzas in the large traditional masonry oven. Adjacent to the kitchen area is a front-of-the-house restaurant/bistro space opening onto an exterior patio that can host student-run catering events.
Securing Key CTE Grants
This gleaming and well-utilized kitchen facility is the culmination of a process initiated many years ago by PVHS CTE coordinator Priscilla Burns, who is nearing retirement after a 41-year career as a career tech instructor, 28 of those years running the programs at PVHS. She sketches the program’s history, “The original space was only six little home-kitchen stations, but our vision was always that we needed more capacity and commercial equipment. Our original grant writing efforts weren’t getting results. We kept running into stumbling blocks and not qualifying for various technical reasons.
When I stepped into the role of Chico’s CTE coordinator, I think it put me in a better position to see the big picture of what we were doing right and the need to dig deeper to connect with labor markets, which is vital in writing CTE facility grants. We put together a great team of people and focused on critical questions: What do the kids need? What does the staff need? What do our industry partners in the area need? What does the space look like? What equipment? What type of workflow?”
That preliminary work paid off as the PV team secured several key grants from various sources—and that funding enabled several major CTE facilities projects on campus that were completed in 2022: a new building housing the culinary arts lab connected with a large multipurpose space, the relocation and modernization of medical CTE lab spaces for clinical and sports medicine pathways, a central outdoor student commons, the courtyard off the culinary lab, and a reimagined front entry to campus. The project involved 11 labs and eight classrooms across eight buildings, covering 40,000 SF, at a final cost of just over $17 million.
HMC Architect’s project architect Riley Peck explains, “When we evaluated the existing site and program goals, we developed a plan that included relocating the administration to an existing building near the front of campus and another relocation dictated by the logic of putting programs in the right places. The site reorganization allowed us to add the student commons as a centerpiece to campus. This work represents a significant reimagination of the campus core. In terms of the style of the new building, we intentionally complimented the style of an existing classroom building built around 2015—this set a new, more contemporary style that will carry forward into future campus projects.”
A Rigorous, Real-World Pathway
Turning back to the culinary program, Priscilla Burns adds some detail about the rigor of the Food Service and Hospitality Pathway and the key connections she has forged with local industry: “We teach them how to do everything from entrees to wedding cake to learning to sauté, learning to bake and work with different pieces of equipment, mixers or speed racks. We also offer students in their junior and senior years the opportunity to do internships. I have students who have worked through the unpaid internship contract and are now on the payroll.”
“Local food service employers see and understand my kids’ skill set and that they’re already trained in food safety and knife skills. The kids know how to run all the building equipment, making them more valuable. A lot of our business partners call me for employees. They’ll visit the school and then offer kids jobs.”
“Some kids are passionate about this industry and use this training as a career ladder toward executive chef positions. Others are more focused on getting a job soon. On that side of the equation, we call it “passion to paychecks.”
The culinary program has only grown in popularity, with 300 students at any time across the different instructional levels. Burns adds, “We hired another staff person last year because enrollment blew up. Kids love culinary! We have kids who show up during their free periods and want to be involved. They’ll ask, ‘Do you want me to reorganize the walk-in?’ They’re taking ownership—from an engagement standpoint, it’s beautiful!”
Foodservice/Hospitality is one of 11 pathways at PVHS, driven by the Chico Unified School District’s commitment to “Engage every student in high-quality, rigorous, and relevant educational pathways and programs.” Because of Chico’s proximity to the north state’s abundant agricultural lands, the Agriculture program and Welding/Manufacturing are quite popular.
Modernized Medical CTE Building
As part of the CTE facilities project, the medical pathway is now housed in a modernized building adjacent to the student commons. Lab and classroom spaces support instruction in clinical patient care and sports medicine. In addition to the primary educational purpose, these spaces are also utilized by PV sports teams and occasionally for training by community organizations.
CTE instructor Melanie Castillo explained that she worked with the nursing program at nearby Butte College to help plan this space, and she listed the equipment required for this equipment-intensive pathway. “We have patient monitors, eight mannequins, two of which are robotic, computer stations, eight state-ofthe-art hospital beds, treatment tables, walkers, wheelchairs, backboards, and an anatomage table.” This 3D digital visualization of the human body’s internal systems allows students to perform virtual dissection as part of anatomy and physiology education.
About two-thirds of the medical pathway students are destined for four-year nursing programs, and a much smaller percentage want to be doctors. Castillo says the programs help some students obtain medical and physical therapy assistant positions directly from high school. She sums up CTE education: “We don’t necessarily think like an English teacher or history teacher. We think of our classrooms as a place of business; we want kids to be ready for whatever they do in life. We try to get working professionals to come back and be teachers. The kids need to see a different way of learning and thinking for how to be successful not only in a job but also in high school and college and beyond.”
A few years after the completion of this project, I have to close with a personal observation: Collaborating with Priscilla, Melanie, and the PV team to bring the vision of world-class education to life was a genuine delight. Their determination to surpass limitations transformed the classrooms and labs. With the infusion of grant funding, Priscilla elevated her teaching environment to such heights that several equipment suppliers commented that PV is the ultimate setting for nurturing the next generation of chefs. This is the power of dedication and innovation in creating extraordinary facilities!
