For Summit School District’s 2024 graduates, high school was a lot more than just sitting at a desk. Amid an evolving workforce landscape, where trade jobs are in demand and new fields like artificial intelligence are on the rise, local educators are responding with a growing emphasis on hands-on learning that they say will provide a multitude of career pathways . As students at Summit High School and Snowy Peaks High School, this year’s graduates have taken on a bevy of projects from building a boat from scratch to shadowing doctors and nurses in hospital rooms.
Here’s what five graduates have to say about time in high school — and how it prepared them for what comes next. Lily D’Onofrio has always had a love for nature. “Growing up here, you’re constantly outdoors,” D’Onofrio said.
“You’re constantly skiing, fishing, mountain biking — just really enjoying the nature that surrounds us.” Over the past years, D’Onofrio has become more attuned to changes in her environment, from snowfall to mining waste leaching into rivers. “It just makes me want to protect the nature that surrounds us,” she said.
As a senior at Summit High School, D’Onofrio took an environmental science class that bolstered her passion for environmental advocacy. The class offered a new way to interact with the county’s watershed, with D’Onofrio taking samples of the Blue River to test pH and oxygen levels, identifying different bug species in the river and touring the wa.