BEREA, Ky. (LEX 18) — Over the last three years, students in the Berea Community Middle School's Jobs for America’s Graduates program have won multiple awards on the national JAG stage and put on events to help others in the Madison County community.
At the end of this school year, however, the middle school program will be cut.
Students completing eighth grade took time to celebrate their progress and accomplishments with a career pathway signing on Thursday, May 14. Signing day meant sharing the careers each student wants to pursue, and the career pathway classes they will need to take in high school to get there.
“It's like something that will prepare you and show you the realistic vision of what you're supposed to do and what you want to do,” said Isaiah Hackett, whose career pathway is media arts. “I've always wanted to be a coach for a sport or a scout.”
“I want to be a firefighter. I want to help people,” Burke Woodward said.
To get there, his career pathway involves taking fire science classes.
“The signing means more signing of accomplishment that I’ve done," he said.
Not only are these students proclaiming their plans for the near future, they’re also celebrating the completion of middle school JAG.
“It's like another home it, like you made so much friends as like family,” Tye Le shared.
“Similar to how like sports teams are, it just brings people together,” Woodward added.
The end of the school year also means the end of Berea Community Middle School JAG. The program was actually going to be cut and the end of the 2024-2025 school year, but students put on a fundraiser and successfully raised enough funds to keep it around for an extra year.
The Berea Community High School JAG program will be retained, and many in this year’s eighth-grade class plan to stick with it. However, students like Abby Hawkins – a seventh grader who was going to be the school’s next JAG president – are sad to see the middle school program go away.
“To be honest, I cried,” Hawkins said. “I really love JAG and It kind of hurt to hear that it's going away. It gave me an idea of what I want to do and how I want my life to go on from now.”
With its history of success and winning national awards, there is some hope still that JAG will eventually return to Berea Community Middle School sometime in the future.
