Hector Rendon, Featured Educator Director of San Benito’s Career and Technology Education

October, 2008
by Eileen Mattei
Hector Rendon has come full circle at San Benito High School in the last 20 years. He graduated from the school’s Co-op Ed program and today is the Director of San Benito’s Career and Technology Education program. The boy who spent half of his high school hours as an air conditioning mechanic’s helper became the man who is responsible for students finding appropriate career pathways before they start high school. His goal is to provide students with the education, training and sometimes certification that will take them to well-paying jobs.

Rendon is justifiably proud that San Benito eighth graders take a career and education course that includes a full semester of career investigation. “We use the ACT/Explorer Interest Assessment (test),” he said, “that gives students at least an inkling of their interests. What happens, we find, is that the students are able to explore their areas. Beginning this year we are utilizing the electronic version for the interest assessment to include the electronic student portfolios”. They investigate the jobs and careers in the top-three identified interest groups in their assessment profiles.

From there, the students are guided in choosing a four-year graduation plan aligned with their career choice and the school’s 16 career clusters. Sometimes that plan exists simultaneously with a Tech Prep six-year plan carrying the student into the first two years of college.

While the students have the opportunity to change their career path during high school, Rendon said the changes have been minimal, which can be attributed to the validity of the assessment test results.

Certainly Rendon would have benefited from that guidance as a teenager. Although he started at TSTC in the air conditioning tech program, he quickly realized it was not for him. By his second semester, he was at what is now the University of Texas-Brownsville studying business. He graduated in 1984, then in 1986 began teaching middle school in San Benito while earning an Alternative Certification in UTB’s pilot program. Soon he was teaching vocational education at San Benito High School.

In 1995, Rendon completed his master’s degree in occupational education and training with a supervisory endorsement. That same year, the state mandated the promotion of graduation plans and career pathways. “We were one of the initial facilities,” that took on the challenge, Rendon recalled. For several years, he worked in Weslaco and at Region One as a Career and Education Specialist, promoting Career and Technology Education courses and pathways. In 2003, he returned to San Benito as the Career and Technology Coordinator and helped develop the plan that is currently in use.

“We have 12 graduation plans and 21 [Tech Prep] six-year plans with TSTC,” Rendon said. With its emphasis on learning in-demand skills, the TSTC Associate Degree is popular. Career options range from engineering, dental hygiene, and healthcare to construction, and, of course, air conditioning.

“We currently have 88 to 92% participation by the student body. Students are expected and encouraged to participate,” he said. He believes that career pathways help keep more teens in school.
By offering Career and Technical courses that give the students dual enrollment credit and/or Advanced Technical Credit for college, the students have a focus and direction in their chosen career.

Rendon is an enthusiastic supporter of skill certifications earned in high school that help students move into the workforce at a higher level. San Benito offers students the opportunity to be certified in automotive ASE, auto collision ASE, welding skills, in CNA-Certified Nursing Assistant, and medical assistants along with emergency communications dispatching, and in computer specialties such as MOS and A+.