OXNARD : Students Can Train for Tourism Industry

Oxnard High School this fall will become the first Ventura County high school to train students for jobs as chefs, hotel desk clerks and other careers in the tourism or hospitality industry.

The yearlong program aims to give students a head start in the competition for jobs in restaurants, hotels, travel agencies and related businesses, said Mary Hopple, chairwoman of the school’s home economics department.

Open to the school’s juniors and seniors, the program will allow students to focus on one of four areas: lodging, recreation, travel or hospitality, which includes restaurant work.

In addition to taking school courses on topics such as hotel management, the students will have field trips to local businesses and will be assigned to observe individuals who work in their chosen fields.

At the end of the program, each student will serve an internship at a local business in the hospitality or tourism industry, Hopple said.

Part of the training, Hopple said, would be to teach students how to deal with the public. “This is a real people-type of industry,” she said.

Students who finish the program would receive a certificate, in addition to their regular diploma, declaring that they have achieved certain skills in hospitality or tourism, Hopple said. Both the school district and the business at which the youth interned would sign the certificate.

Hopple hopes that the career-oriented program will encourage students to work harder at their academic courses.

“They think of school as this thing we go to and then we’re going to start life after school,” she said. “Our goal is that if we give kids a focus that they’re interested in, they’re going to see a connection between classwork . . . and what they need on their jobs.”