Lawrence High Innovation Expo showcases hands-on career training, student talent

Career training in public view

At Lawrence High School, students turned a night of displays, food and live art into a public demonstration of how career education works when it is tied to real skills. The fourth annual Innovation Expo on Wednesday night, April 15, 2026, pulled Lawrence Public Schools’ Career and Technical Education program out of the classroom and into view for families, educators and community members.

Lawrence Public Schools described the event as “a bright future” on full display, with “spectators, educators, and student innovators” gathered for the annual expo. That framing matters because the expo was not built around one class or one club. It was a window into how the district is trying to prepare students for a range of futures, including careers that do not require a traditional four-year college route.

Eight pathways, one message

The breadth of the work on display was the point. Lawrence High’s CTE program includes eight pathways: Animal, Plant and Environmental Systems; Business and Technology; Design, Production and Repair; Drafting and Engineering; Health Science and Biomedicine; Hospitality and Tourism; Human and Public Services; and Visual Arts and Media. Together, those pathways show a school system trying to connect student interests to practical training instead of treating career education as an afterthought.

That approach also fits the broader direction of Kansas career and technical education. The Kansas State Department of Education says CTE is intended to help students build real-world employability skills, connect learning to workforce applications, promote postsecondary degrees and certifications, and introduce students to industry partners. In other words, the expo is not just a showcase of talent. It is part of a larger effort to make high school work more relevant to life after graduation.

From brownies to biomedicine

Chef Rose Barry, Lawrence High’s culinary arts teacher, put the philosophy in plain language. “We just want our kids to keep learning,” she said, adding that students can learn a skill they enjoy and make a living doing it without a four-year institution. Her students made that point tangible with food that looked simple at first glance but reflected real kitchen discipline: plain brownies, caprese skewers, fruit pizza cookies and spanakopita bites.

The value of that kind of project is not only in the final product. It is in the sequence of skills behind it, from planning and timing to presentation and consistency. For families trying to understand what CTE really means, the expo offered a clear answer: these are not abstract exercises. They are small-scale versions of work students could do in restaurants, catering, hospitality or other food-service settings.

Students explained the work themselves

The creativity on display went beyond the kitchen. Senior Ru Yother painted on an old X-ray light box for a project prompt called “Zombie self portrait,” turning an unusual object into a piece of art that carried both technical and conceptual weight. Yother said she planned to fix a broken light in the piece and noted that the object is heavy, details that make the project feel closer to real problem-solving than a simple art assignment.

Yother identified Todd Poteet as especially encouraging in her class, a reminder that student confidence often grows when teachers push students to take ownership of what they make. That kind of autonomy mattered throughout the expo. Students were explaining their work to visitors, talking through their ideas and standing behind their choices rather than handing in assignments only to be graded in private.

That public presentation piece is easy to overlook, but it is one of the most valuable parts of CTE. Students who can describe a project, explain the decisions behind it and adjust based on feedback are practicing communication skills that carry directly into interviews, internships and jobs.

The pipeline beyond high school

The Lawrence College & Career Center adds another layer to that pipeline. The center says it prepares students for their future through hands-on learning experiences, and that students can earn college credit while still in high school, with an opportunity for free tuition. It also says its courses are designed for postsecondary enrollment and high-wage, high-demand careers.

That makes the Innovation Expo more than a school event. It is part of a pathway system that can lead students from Lawrence High into college credit, certifications and career-specific training without waiting for graduation to begin. For Douglas County families, that matters because it broadens what success can look like after high school: immediate work, more education, or a combination of both.

The policy question beneath the celebration is whether those pathways stay aligned with the jobs and training needs that employers actually have. On that measure, the expo’s strongest evidence was the way it emphasized employability skills alongside creativity. Students were learning to cook, build, design, repair, present and problem-solve, the kind of work habits that matter in both entry-level jobs and advanced training programs.

The Innovation Expo showed Lawrence schools trying to make career education concrete, visible and public. In a district that says a bright future was on display, the clearest sign of progress was not just what students made, but how confidently they explained why it mattered.