For Anna Brotherton, 12, being the EHS Hub director is more than just a job; it’s a family tradition. The 18-year-old director decided to follow in the footsteps of her older sister, Cara Brotherton, former EHS Hub director in 2023.
“I wanted to get involved just because Cara just made it look really fun,” Brotherton said.
Starting in her sophomore year, Anna Brotherton was quickly immersed into the Eurekana yearbook; and as a junior, she became a section editor. Going into her senior year, the EHS Hub journalism adviser, Kristen Rogan, offered Anna an official Rockwood position through the Cooperative Career Education (CCE) program, a program combining classroom instruction with paid work relating to a student’s intended career.
Unlike Anna, most students in the CCE program leave campus to work for external employers. Brotherton, however, remains on-site, serving the school community directly.
Next school year, the Rockwood School District is eliminating the CCE program and replacing it with the Supervised Business Experience (SBE) program. For most students it is a seemingly indifferent change but for Rockwood student employees sponsored by CCE it is major, since the district has decided to eliminate their positions. Anna Brotherton describes the move as “truly unfair.”
According to the Eureka High School (EHS) building principal, Dr. Correy Sink, the CCE sponsored Rockwood student employee cut is largely due to the district’s hiring constraints. Sink said he can only have so many employees on staff so “at the end of the day I want to maintain as many actual teachers as possible. I’d much rather have a highly qualified teacher than a student”
The loss of the remuneration is particularly stinging for the underclassmen prepared to take the reins for next school year.
Anna pointed out that Caleb Pickens, 11, a hardworking junior and current Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Bugle, is a primary example of those who are losing out because of the transition.
“I think, especially for someone like Caleb, who is such a hard worker, it’s unfair for people like him with such a drive for the journalism community to miss out on that,” Brotherton said. “I feel like we genuinely work so hard. In journalism, you have to do so much and it’s all really hard work … and for those people to not get paid for that, for their work, is completely unfair.”
Amy Boscan, class of 2026 Assistant Principal, said even though students won’t be “getting paid in money, they will be paid in learning, credit and experience”.
However, Anna still describes the lack of monterey compensation as “disappointing since these students that work for the school, through CCE, do a lot for the school behind the scenes.”
Despite the frustration over the program’s end, the skills Brotherton has gained behind the editor’s desk are pivoting into a career in healthcare. She plans to attend the University of Missouri (Mizzou) to major in psychology, with the long-term goals of attending Physician Assistant school at University of Kansas-Missouri City (UKMC) to become a Psychological Physician Assistant.
The journalistic process of interviewing strangers and publishing stories has, according to Brotherton, been the ultimate preparation for a life of service.
“It showed me how to enjoy other people and how to really get to know them,” she said. “I definitely think this job has influenced me to just get out there and help.”
As the final year of the Rockwood student employee CCE position draws to a close, Brotherton remains a firm believer in the talent left behind.
“I just think we have an incredible [journalism] program, where the work that is done genuinely benefits the school, and I think we can do really big things,” Brotherton said.
