Skills USA is returning to McIntosh this year after a multi-year absence. The SkillsUSA organization was officially founded in 1965, however the history of skilled trades dates back as far as to the early civilizations.

SkillsUSA represents over 413,000 career and technical education to students and teachers. Using the “SkillsUSA Framework,” students are able to sharpen their own skills and develop transformative career-readiness skills. Jennifer Nirenberg teaches the Law pathway for McIntosh and is sponsoring the Skills USA Club.

“That amount of student interest tells me I personally have to step up my game. I am creating new lesson plans for Criminal Justice and Criminal Investigation,” Nirenberg said.

Nirenberg decided to sponsor the SkillsUSA Club in order to provide more opportunities for students to participate in the things they are interested in.

“[Students] want to do stuff outside of school, which is a whole other level, and because of the student demand for that,” Nirenberg said about why she decided to sponsor the club.

Multiple students serve as officers, including sophomore Maggie Johnston and junior Sadie Cline. As officers, their job is to help teach other students how to best put their skills to use.

“We also offer, in the spring, a big field trip. There’s different things you can compete in. You could debate, do crime investigations and medical things,” Johnston said.

The club provides opportunities for participants to compete in competitions and offers volunteer hours, which can be used for other clubs such as Beta Club. 

The club has many goals for their club, wanting to educate and help other students learn life and career skills.

“Our goals are to better, grow and educate our members on how different skills are,” Johnston said.

Skills USA offers multiple career categories for competition. 

“Some of the categories will be law, healthcare, graphic design and a few others if you don’t see anything you like in those categories,” Cline said.