GULF SHORES, Ala. – When it comes to Gulf Shores High School, it’s dang near impossible for Principal Ernie Rosado to contain his enthusiasm.

From Learning for Life to Digital Renaissance to the Career Academies at his school, Rosado just bubbles about the innovations in education he and his staff are overseeing at the school.

This is the second year of the Career Academy where students begin early on in occupational fields of study ranging from medical to horticulture and just about everything in between.

The academies are in education, engineering, fine arts, audio visual, health sciences, architecture and horticulture, law, business and finance, informational technology, hospitality, tourism and culinary.

Rosado recently gave the Gulf Shores City Council a preview to the upcoming year at the school.

“Gulf Shores High School has been busy this summer,” Rosado said. “A lot of good things are going on. Teachers come back on Aug. 12, students back on the 19th.

“Here we come. One team, one fight and we’re going to get after it.”

The Career Academy is getting attention not just around the state or the country, but from around the world. Rosado and other Baldwin County educators recently went to a conference in California to make a presentation on the Gulf Shores program.

Those making the trip with Rosado included Charlene Hoffman, the Career Academy Coordinator, and Susan Nelson, the Instructional Transformation specialist at the school and Baldwin County Board of Education member Angie Swiger.

“We went and presented in Long Beach, Calif., the world career academy conference,” Rosado said. “A lot of good things have come out of there. We’re going to be working with Uganda, we’re going to be working with China. Our students, our education academy is going to be working with Uganda.

“We just got in confirmed from Afghanistan, the Minister of Education is coming with two teachers in January to little old Gulf Shores, Ala., and to New York to train on our teaching practices and our career academies. They want to start it in Afghanistan.”

Gulf Shores and the Cultural Academy of Arts and Sciences in Brooklyn are sister schools working together on the Career Academy concept. Last year teachers from each school visited and taught in each other’s schools.

Another thing Rosado is excited about are the new teachers stepping into Career Academy roles at Gulf Shores.

“Steve McKenzie, our horticulture and industry construction academy, he retired,” Rosado said. “Got a brand new teacher, 22 years old coming right out of Auburn, but this guy’s on fire. We’re going to meet him next week.

“We have a new teacher coming from Elberta, Tonya Roberts. She’s going to be our audiovisual academy. She has done so much this summer for that and the kids are going to be so excited.”

Rosado said 12 new teachers will be coming to his school this fall, many of them moving here with families to be part of the community.

Students will also get to enjoy a new feature in the school’s library.

“Our new Dolphin Student Center is coming to our library,” Rosado said. “It’s a mess in there right now, but in a couple of weeks we will have a Dolphin Café, we’ll have a Dolphin Store. We have our tables already set up. We’ve got a TV set there, some barstools in there, a printing kiosk.

“It’ll be a place where they can come, sit down, study and get something to drink or and work just like at a college level. That’s about to open up in the fall.”

Rosado said that although he can’t open a maritime academy, he wants the engineering academy to work on building a boat. Environmental classes will also be branching out to work on maritime themes as well.

“We’re meeting with Jerry Johnson and some of his people with boat builders and mechanics working on the maritime academy,” he said. “I can’t open a maritime academy, but we’re working with our engineering classes maybe building a boat with those folks.

“The environmental classes may be working with a reef. We’re discussing it.”

Another new concept in the works is a student court. Rosado is working with Judge Carmen Bosch to set up a teen court in the Law Academy. Bosch is the Senior Family Court Judge in Baldwin County, hearing primarily divorce and juvenile matters.

Another important initiative Rosado hopes to foster this school year is getting more students working out in the community as part of their education.

“One of our goals in the next two or three years is what can we do in the classroom to help the community,” he said. “You’ll be seeing us in culinary, all the other classes, even English, math and science classes.”

One of those first initiatives will be working with the SEC Soccer Tournament and having English classes writing the opening and closing statements for the event.

“Bringing back that practically and reality back to the high school and that’s exciting,” Rosado said. “You’ll see our folks throughout the year.”