The Eden Career Technical Center has a new director. Christy Moore moves from her assistant principal position at Springville Middle School to the technical school to take over for Jim King, who retired at the end of the school year.
Moore’s first day on the job was July 1.
Moore is a 1993 graduate of Hewitt-Trussville High School. At first, as she was deciding on a career, Moore wanted to do occupational therapy.
“Then in my junior year, I became interested in special education,” Moore said. “When I went to Montevallo, that’s what I started pursuing. But as time went on, I decided I wanted to be more of a generalist, so I went into elementary education. I never thought I would be in high school, and I’ve never been in anything under sixth-grade.”
After high school, Moore attended Montevallo one year, moved back home and started attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham while working as an aide at Erwin Elementary School.
Moore received her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from UAB in 1996. She received her master’s degree in school counseling from Montevallo in 2000. She also earned her education specialist degree in guidance and counseling in 2005 from UAB. She became National Board Certified in November 2005 and then received her administrative certification in the spring of 2006 from UAB.
During all this, she was working. She was a teacher at Clay-Chalkville Middle School before moving on to Clay-Chalkville High School for five years as the school counselor.
For the past two years, she was the assistant principal at Springville Middle School.
When the position of director for ECTC became available, Moore knew she wanted to apply.
“I have always just had a love and passion for vocational education,” Moore said. “As a high school counselor, that is what I dealt with. I had a chance to work with our vocational schools as far as scheduling, counseling with students to encourage them to find their career interests.”
Possible ideas for improvements at ECTC center on communities, high schools, new programs for students and renovating the facility.
Moore said some of the ways to create new programs include:
O Conduct needs assessments.
O Conduct staff and program evaluations.
O Build student numbers in certain programs.
O Construct academies.
O Add programs such as pre-engineering, teaching, culinary arts and graphic design, just to name a few.
O Modernize technology.
O Increase funding for facilities and programs through grant writing.
O Create a Web site.
O Create brochures.
One program Moore hopes to implement is called Career Cruising, a Web-based career program.
“It is fabulous,” Moore said. “Instead of students having to do pencil and paper, knowing that counselors are very limited on time and we all are focused on No Child Left Behind, this frees up students where they can do work on their own time.”
Moore said it is just a passion of hers because her dad worked in the coal mines and he was crushed in an accident and had to go through rehabilitation. Moore said her father was able to get computer-programming training through a technical school and it changed their lives.
Superintendent Jenny Seals said Moore provided the interview committee with a plan of action to address the needs of students for career choices.
“She was just phenomenal in the interview,” Seals said. “She will help those students and provide a lot of different resources. She was the best candidate. She is excited and has had experience in career counseling and career technical education. We are going to see a lot of different changes and resources she will bring to that school. We are all excited.”
“The goals of ECTC should focus on promoting the positive image of career and technical education as a facet where students receive resources and services that ensure student success,” Moore said. “They then receive an increase in academic skills while maintaining effective partnerships to promote development of Alabama’s workforce. It is also crucial to develop and utilize progressive and research-based career and technical education curricula while recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers. This can all be achieved though effective integration of the academic, technical, technological and workplace readiness skills which will prepare students for postsecondary education, apprenticeship, employment and life.”
Automotive and marine technology instructor Scott White said he and other instructors are really looking forward working with Moore.
“We are anticipating new ideas from her,” White said. “We feel she will freshen things up a little bit. I think she has a big hand in helping us with new opportunities down the road in the future. We’ve already discussed with her that we want to see some new ideas and interests take place. We want to get on board with her and go.”
Moore and her husbandl, John Moore, have been married eight years. He is the assistant superintendent of the St. Clair County School System. They have two children, Jacob, 5, and Kate, 2.
They live in Springville and are members of Springville United Methodist Church.
