By DEB BENTLY
Staff Writer
NRHEG Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) teacher Kelly Delacruz will be among the presenters at a statewide gathering of FACS teachers who either already have or are interested in beginning a “Pro-Start” program for their students.
The training, organized by Hospitality Minnesota (The Minnesota branch of the National Restaurant Association) will be August 2 and 4 in the General Mills headquarters in Golden Valley. Also presenting during the two days will be professional chefs from General Mills and from various well-known restaurants and colleges.
Delacruz says the focus of her 1-hour presentation will be to describe NRHEG’s transition from a traditional “home cooking” FACS approach to the Career and Technical Education (CTE) format now available to Pro-Start students.
Pro-Start is a nationwide program sponsored by the National Restaurant Association. The program not only provides textbooks, it also offers grants and other forms of assistance meant to help learners become proficient at preparing and serving food while also meeting industry and safety standards.
Delacruz, now in her sixth year at NRHEG, incorporated a Pro-Start curriculum among the classes offered at NRHEG three years ago. This past spring, she was honored as Minnesota’s Pro-Start Educator of Excellence.
In addition to the title, the honor included participation in a National Restaurant Association ProStart Educator training which took place mid-July in Texas at the Dallas Fairmont Hotel and the Dallas Culinary College. Delacruz joined another 20 or so state winners and more than a hundred professional chefs and ProStart educators from across the nation as they increased their skills.
Delacruz remembers feeling somewhat intimidated, since she is not a classically trained chef, but says she took advantage of the time to learn everything she could for the sake of her students.
Her presentation at General Mills will essentially tell the story of NRHEG’s transition process, beginning with the passing of a tax referendum which facilitated many upgrades to the district’s CTE programs, which include agriculture, woods, metals, FACS and business education. One of the upgrades was to remove the “home economics” kitchens which had been in use since the 1990s and replace them with a commercial grade kitchen, with equipment and work spaces modeled after those used in professional settings.
With that foundation in place, Delacruz says, she went looking for a training program which would truly help her students build the “career and technical” skills her program is meant to deliver.
“I chose Pro-Start because it’s sponsored by the National Restaurant Association,” Delacruz says. Among the benefits that sponsorship provides are professionally focused training, grants, and connections with professional chefs who can guide and mentor students. Delacruz speculates that the restaurant association is willing to go to such lengths because the hospitality industry is the country’s largest employer and wants to make it as easy as possible for interested students to follow a career path which will prepare them for its jobs.
In addition to benefits within the classroom, the industry also sponsors special events and competitions meant to help students increase their skills. Delacruz has taken teams to a number of events, including, for the first time this spring, state-level competition for which she had two teams of students design and plan an elaborate menu, and then prepare and serve the dishes to judges.
Thanks to the strong reputation of the NRHEG Pro-Start program, Delacruz has seen it grow from fewer than 10 students at the start to 27 students registered to take part this fall.
“I want the FACS teachers at the General Mills workshop to know they can do this,” comments Delacruz regarding her presentation.
“Even if our students are competing against each other, we instructors are like family. We know we’re working together to build better opportunities for everyone.”