Welcome to Rumble Strip, this is Erica Heilman.

The electrical teacher, Roberts, is definitely a one of a kind guy.

That's Alex. He's a high school senior at St Johnsbury Academy up in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

My sophomore year, I got in some trouble with the school and he immediately stepped up to

bat to keep me in school and I don't know halfway through my

sophomore year I think it was I started giving up on the electrical because it got

hard and he told me not to because he saw the potential in me and looking back now I'm definitely glad I didn't give up on it.

The Northeast Kingdom is mostly small towns separated by miles and miles,

and it has some of the highest unemployment and lowest wages in the state. It's a beautiful

place. It's also a difficult place to live and make a living.

And Alex is well on his way to becoming a full-time electrician.

I spent a day visiting Alex's class, visiting a lot of the classes in the Career and Technical Education

program up at the St. Johnsbury Academy, and I had that experience when you know you're seeing

something important,

something that's so obvious and right

that it's almost hiding in plain sight.

Career and technical education,

CTE, as they call it. I think when I went to school they called it vocational education

or voc ed. But this program at this school is unlike any voc ed I've ever seen.

Unlike most schools, the program isn't segregated

from the school's academic programs,

which means you leave English class

...