The Fountain Hills High School Career and Technical Education department is new and improved this year. For the first time, students can earn internship credits and certifications on campus in sports medicine, culinary arts and business management.

Last year, Superintendent Kelly Glass surveyed students about CTE courses they would like to have available on campus, and then FHUSD hired two new staff members before the 2021-2022 school year, Kevin Clancy and Jasun Zakro, to teach the very courses asked for by the students.

“There’s certifications and hands-on experience that you get from not just my class, but Jason's as well,” Clancy said. “So, students will be leaving first aid certified, OSHA 10 certified. They are trained up to take the Certified Personal Training exam, which whether they're going to college or going into the career right away, it’s a really profitable certification to have.”

Clancy came over to Fountain Hills from California where he most recently worked in nonprofit event management, specifically for the California International Marathon. Prior to that, Clancy had started a sports medicine program at Foothill High School in Sacramento. Clancy’s program in California started with year one and year two courses, but he said he appreciates how Fountain Hills is starting only with the year one course.

“There’s a lot of steps to go through and the kids have actually been very understanding about the situation,” Zakro said. “We're really just starting to dive into more things.”

Zakro is also only teaching the first-year course for both culinary and business management this year. He has mixed the courses together with curriculum like food costing, menu writing and food truck management projects already this year. Zakro has lived in Arizona for 20 years, served in military food service for 16 years and is in his 12th year of teaching.

Zakro has high ambitions for the CTE program at Fountain Hills, and several key pieces have already come together. The district has purchased all the kitchen equipment in the former Four Peaks Elementary School campus, so the students will have a commercial facility to use next year, instead of the old hospitality management classroom. The new location will be great for year two courses, which are two hours long instead of one.

Zakro has also organized the first ever Arizona High School BBQ State Championship through the National High School BBQ Association. The competition will be held on April 30, 2022, in Fountain Hills. The top three teams will be eligible to travel to Texas in June for the National competition and have a chance at a full tuition culinary scholarship to Sullivan University.

Clancy and Zakro both teach theory and practicality lessons to students. Zakro has six college degrees and says he can teach history, geography and science to his students. In regard to BBQ, Zakro says that there are 11 distinct types of BBQ in the country, and five come from the Southeast.

“A gram is a gram, regardless, especially in baking, you have to weigh everything,” Zakro said. “I teach ratios and techniques, because by teaching ratio, they can scale up or down. Why memorize a recipe when you can memorize a ratio and technique and make it as big or small as you want. If you do it right, the technique is always the same. The ratio is always the same.”

Zakro said that he’d like to make a year three class that will be a science credit for seniors. He says he can tie biochemistry and physics into food science. Zakro said his classes are not a place to just eat food, and that he will train the students like anyone else in the industry.

Clancy has plans for the future of his sports medicine program, and he has a few students that are already ahead of him. He said that typically students act as athletic training aids for sport teams in their second year, but three students have volunteered to help in year one. Those students have made use of the lessons in first aid, injury taping and injury assessment already. In the future, Clancy will assign students to a team to help, and all athletic training aids will earn internship hours.

Clancy and Zakro both agreed that the school and community have been very welcoming and supportive of their new programs. The rest of the students and staff enjoyed several different soups from Zakro’s classes already, but that’s not the only way he hopes to give back. He said a goal of his is to have his students cook for and run the concession stand at the homecoming football game next year. It would be a way to fundraise and allow students to earn community service hours.

“For those that don't know on the outside, it really is a good place to be,” Clancy said. “The kids are wonderful, and the community is very supportive…At the end of our classes, they will have resume items printed out that show how many internship hours they’ve done, how many certifications they have, and they have a chance to build it up before they even get into the second year of the programs.”