A Career and Technical Education program for cosmetology is in its early planning stages at the Park. Administrators aim to add courses that will instruct high school students who attend the Park and Starkweather on cosmetology. This would join other CTE courses currently offered by
P-CCS, including Auto & Collision Repair, Marketing & Business, and Culinary Arts.

CTE courses allow students to explore careers that with training can allow students to obtain a full-time career upon graduation from high school.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that while the average projected overall job growth for all occupations is 3%, cosmetology has a projection of 5% growth. 

Angel Lett, Salem assistant principal, and Montyne Barbee, Canton assistant principal, are working together to develop the program. The tentative plan is to go through Beauty Luxe in Ypsilanti. 

The number of students who can participate may be limited due to space at Beauty Luxe which also has students outside of high school.

Lett hopes for as many spots as Beauty Luxe can provide, but she is also realistic in her expectations. “It would be a win if they could offer us 15 to 20 spots. That way we could have three to five people from each home school, including Starkweather.”

There is a shortage of bus drivers for many school districts in Michigan, and there has been since the pandemic. Admin do not know if they will be able to acquire a driver. They also need to make sure that the high school, middle school, and elementary school routes are covered before they have a bus dedicated to a route that leaves the district boundaries on a daily basis.

Even with these issues, there has been a need for resources, such as articles on the best schools in the area, to give to students who want to go into a cosmetology related career.

Carter White, Salem senior, says that he learned about beauty schools and what his options were from his own hairstylist. “My hair stylist, she works at Ashka [Salon & Spa], she went to Douglas J. Institute, that’s how I found out about it.”

Hair is one of the most sought after cosmetology related careers, but in recent years careers in press-on and acrylic nails have risen in popularity. Many become entrepreneurial nail artists. 

Plymouth senior Zoey Hall has been running her own Etsy shop where she sells her custom sets, and has been making nails for two years.

Hall wishes she could have benefitted from the possible upcoming program and hopes for the best in a CTE program for future high schoolers, “It would be good to have multiple options, because when you go to cosmetology, there’s more than just hair and nails. There’s also lashes, massages, actual estheticians and makeup. There’s tons of stuff. So it would be nice to have something that maybe went over all of that.”

Lett aims to have the program up and running by the 2027-28 school year.