SPRINGVILLE -- The day after her high school graduation last year, Julie Barnes landed her first high-tech job.
Since then, three of her former classmates have joined her as employees of Crystal Canyon Information Architects, a Provo firm specializing in Web technology.The four Springville High School graduates credit their high school Web publishing class for jump starting their careers.
Other alumni of the high school course, as well as current students, are attracting the notice of local high-tech firms.
Carey Montierth, teacher of the class, said interest in her students has picked up over the past year, with other students being hired at local businesses or offered opportunities for internships.
"It is just incredibly fulfilling as a teacher to see them succeed in the area that you helped them plan and nurture," Montierth said.
The 4-year-old class teaches students to design, construct and post pages on the Internet.
Students learn HTML, the code used to create a Web page, as well as other tools such as JavaScript and Adobe Photoshop. They are also required to create a portfolio of their work.
As part of the class, students design Web pages for local businesses. By making a donation to the Web publishing class, a business can have its newly designed Web page posted on the Internet for a limited time. These pages may be viewed at www.edu-partners.com.
Juniors and seniors may take the course for up to two years and receive a business credit. Montierth said Springville's course is the only one of its kind in Nebo School District.
Barnes called the class "invaluable training" that helped her develop a portfolio she was able to drop off with a Crystal Canyon representative at a job fair.
Other former Springville students working at Crystal Canyon are Shim Manning, Matt Shelley and Phil Erickson.
"They're doing great. They're extremely valuable to us," said Jeff Lamb, vice president of operations at Crystal Canyon. The four are basically working as production designers, taking artists' concepts and putting them into practice.
During their tenure as employees, the four have learned a lot and proved to the company that there is value in having a partnership with the schools, Lamb said.
"Our intent was, I think, to kind of get us through some expansion," he said. "But in doing so, those four have proven to us that there will probably always be someplace in this company that we can bring in high school kids because of the value."
Although considered a 1999 Springville graduate, Jed Patrick finished his required classes early and began attending Utah Valley State College during his senior year.
He was first hired at Infovision Interactive in Orem. He now works on Web pages for Galaxy Enterprises, also in Orem. He was recently promoted to a management position.
Patrick said his high school Web publishing class was handled much like a real business and credited Montierth with encouraging him to consider a career more oriented toward management.
"It was just like a real business instead of just little kids building Web pages in a high school computer room," Patrick said. "I really liked business after that because I liked talking to people."
Jonathon Juvenal, Web designer at Focus Design in Provo, said his company began offering unpaid internship positions to Springville students during the winter of 1999.
"Both of them have been really highly technically inclined. I've actually been really impressed," Juvenal said of the company's two current interns, Rob Merrell and Brandon Jacobsen.
The interns are taught techniques his company's Web department uses on a regular basis, Juvenal said, and as the interns become proficient, they are put to work on company projects.
The internships offer students a chance to get experience in the work environment and help the company keep costs low for its clients, Juvenal said.
Shad Glover, president of Success Team International, an Internet marketing company in Orem, said he visited Springville's Web publishing class recently both to investigate hiring some of the students and to foster community involvement with students who are interested in computers.
"We want to hire some students that we can train, for example, how to build commercials for businesses," Glover said. "We went out there to see if we could hire some of the senior students there on a part-time basis and then when they graduate we were going to offer them a scholarship to go on to college and also offer them a position here with our company."
Glover said his company would like to create a competition through which high school students in the area would be given their own "real-world project" that would actually be used by a Success Team International client. Although one project would be declared the winner, all the students participating would gain experience creating a project that could go in a portfolio or on a resume.
"There are overachievers in the high schools all over the area," he said, "and nobody is tapping into their potential."