Mirroring that change is a revamping of the state's diploma choices for public high school students to include two options for career technical endorsements.
The change goes into effect beginning with next year's ninth-graders. Both options with the career technical components require students to have a strong academic background as well.
The diplomas include the Alabama High School diploma with advanced career technical education endorsement where the student must pass all five sections of the Alabama High School Graduation Exam as well as algebra 2 with trigonometry and three career tech courses.
The other diploma includes an advanced academic diploma with advanced career technical education endorsement. That diploma includes all the requirements for Alabama advanced diploma including algebra 2 with trigonometry, two foreign language courses, pass all sections of the graduation exam and three career technical courses.
The purpose for the changes right now, when many career technical programs are losing enrollment, is understandable, career tech program officials say. But, whether it will actually help raise the numbers of students taking career technical classes remains to be seen.
"The purpose is to try to raise the bar with career technical education and help those students meet greater expectations," said Jeanette Custer, director of career technical education for Florence City Schools.
Florence has the only career technical program in the Shoals with increasing numbers of students.
"With these diploma options I believe we'll raise the caliber of students we have in career tech programs because now, students will have to be academically (competent) as well as in the trade. We're trying to prepare students to be able to collaborate and compete within a global society, and things have changed and we now have to include rigorous academics as well."
As for how many of next year's freshmen will declare a diploma with a career technical endorsement, no one knows. In fact, students don't even register for ninth grade until next spring.
But Custer said one thing is for sure: "Career technical programs are recognized more now than ever because of such a strong emphasis being placed on high-tech jobs across the nation," she said. "More and more companies are asking for that training on applications, and it also gives students a big head start in college."
That's exactly what Craig Yarbrough is hoping for. The Brooks High School senior is on the academic diploma track and says he wishes there had been a career technical endorsement option when he was a freshman entering high school.
"If I had it to do over again and could, I'd definitely do it," he said. "I'd tell any freshman who thinks he'd be interested in career technical classes to go for it."
Yarbrough, whose main focus in career tech is welding, said he always knew he'd take the most challenging academic classes possible. And he has. He'll earn an advanced academic diploma, but the career technical classes will "add weight to my diploma."
Yarbrough believes there are many students like himself who care about academics but are also interested in career technical education.
"It's hard in our system to schedule career technical classes, especially if you're on an academic diploma, but I'm hoping students will be able to do both. In today's time, companies want you to have an academic background, not just vocational training."
Kenneth Angel, director of Allen Thornton Career Technical School in Lauderdale County, said high school counselors will begin in the early spring surveying the students to determine their interest in career technical programs. He said the new diploma offerings won't help his program get more students because students already have a difficult time scheduling career technical courses.
"There's a greater need than ever for skilled workers, but our hands are tied because our courses are only offered as electives and the students simply can't work them in," he said. "We have a lot of work to do to try and work this out, especially given that the students who take (career technical) classes here are mostly juniors and seniors.
Angel agrees that by partnering strong academics with career technical education, a stronger image is created and students are more well-rounded, even more employable, when they finish their education, be it in a two- or four-year college.
"It's sort of like the (state) saying, 'Here are these options and they're really good ones, but it's your responsibility to work it out and make it possible for kids to take these opportunities,' " Angel said.
Brooks High School Guidance Counselor Betty Fanning said the key is getting parents to understand the importance of career technical education.
"These technical fields are so much stronger now, but we still have to make parents understand that students' involvement in career technical classes isn't dumbing down a child, but to the contrary is requiring them to know more than ever," Fanning said.
Shenetta Smith, interim director for the Muscle Shoals Center for Technology, said the new diploma offerings mean more choices for students, and that's a good thing.
"We have some students with the potential to go that direction and these extra diploma offerings just open up opportunities," she said. "Our enrollment is down this year as it has been for the past few years. Maybe this will help."
Russellville Middle School Principal Frankie Hammock said the new diploma offerings will "save a lot of kids from dropping out just by gearing them in this direction."