Moorhead Public Schools

Every year, the month of February is designated as Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month to celebrate the importance of CTE in schools and the accomplishments of CTE programs. At the Moorhead High School Career Academy, students have the opportunity to not only take classes in career and technical fields but also, thanks to partnerships with local businesses and organizations, get hands-on, real-world experience.
“For the spring semester, there are 14 students getting hands-on experience with our partners,” said Career Academy community outreach coordinator Tom Dryburgh. “We’ve got students working right here in Moorhead and some are driving to Hawley to be able to get that important experience.”
The educational Academy seeing the most significant early rewards of these partnerships is Health & Human Potential, which encompasses health science and human services. According to Dryburgh, during the 2024-25 school year, seven MHS students participated in the Sanford Clinical High School Internship devised under the Sanford-MAPS partnership. These students completed a clinical internship in various areas including Hospice Care, Urgent Care and Med/Surg Innovation to name a few at Sanford during the fall semester.
A total of 96 students took the CNA course in 2023-24, a jump in popularity over the previous year which led to the creation of an Introduction to Health Science class as a prerequisite. In 2024-25, 194 students enrolled in Intro to Health Sciences with another 42 in the CNA class for a total of 236.
“It wasn’t that long ago that CNA classes were taken off-campus and you only had five or six students enrolled,” noted MHS principal Josh Haag, “and now we have a full-time teacher teaching six blocks of the CNA course.”
The increasingly popular CNA class is not the only area that the Health & Human Potential Academy is growing: Moorhead Area Public Schools and Sanford recently announced a partnership with Minnesota State Career & Technical College (M State) to offer Emergency Medical Responder training—the first time M State and Sanford have worked together to bring such training to high school students.
This new course not only equips students with important hands-on skills but prepares them for the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians exam. Passing this exam allows the students to become licensed EMTs in Minnesota and North Dakota.
“The Moorhead High School Career Academy is all about career exploration and hands-on learning,” says MAPS superintendent Dr. Brandon Lunak. “This programming is a concept that the district has been envisioning for several years, and we are thrilled to partner with Sanford and M State to make it a reality. Together, we will provide outstanding credentialing opportunities for our students and a potential workforce pipeline for our community. We all benefit.”
Currently, the MHS Career Academy offers six educational Academies to students: Health & Human Potential; Farm-to-Table; Distribution-Manufacturing-Transportation; Business & Entrepreneurship; IT & Design Thinking; and Liberal Arts & Communication. Each year, the district works to expand the number of courses and programs of study available at the Career Academy.