{"id":325644,"date":"2026-07-01T05:40:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T05:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/325644\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T05:40:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T05:40:49","slug":"pinellas-schools-launches-girls-only-automotive-summer-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/325644\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinellas Schools launches girls-only automotive summer camp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Inside the garage at Northeast High School in St. Pete, things are on the up-and-up. Cars are being raised up and down by the <a href=\"https:\/\/pcsborg.finalsite.com\/learning\/summer-programs\/summer-enrichment-camps\/career-exploration-summer-enrichment-camps\/basic-auto-service-camp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">newest summer camp students<\/a>, a group of ten girls.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This week, they are learning the basics when it comes to automotive care, including oil changes, battery and windshield wiper replacements, and fluid checks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always kind of grown up working on cars with my grandparents. They owned Pinellas Electric Motors,\u201d said Ahnalee Noon, a tenth grader at Richard O. Jacobson Technical High School.<\/p>\n<p>Noon is seriously thinking about automotive work as a career. She said not in her grandparents\u2019 shop though \u2014 she has different plans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, I think I want to work with, like, diesel and big trucks,\u201d she said with a smile.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Big trucks and big dreams for all these <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcsb.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Pinellas County School<\/a> students.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe girls are doing great,\u201d said Frederick Lawrence, the automotive instructor at Northeast High School. \u201cWe actually did a lesson in the morning yesterday. A short lesson today. They jumped right in. They come right out. They were all hands-on. They wanted to learn, very eager to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawrence runs the summer camp, which is a first for the Pinellas County School District. The reason for starting the camp in part has to do with the need for certified automotive technicians. Lawrence worked 50 years in the automotive industry before becoming a teacher.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, they\u2019re struggling (automotive industry),\u201d said Lawrence, when asked about the workforce. \u201cThey need people to come out and learn. And, you know, they\u2019re willing to do whatever they can to get them into their program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unlike a four-year degree, most of these students can become certified automotive technicians in a year at a technical college.<\/p>\n<p>But more than that, these young women know that knowledge is power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven if you don\u2019t end up wanting to go into the career. It\u2019s a lot of useful stuff that you won\u2019t be spending tens of thousands of dollars on to get your car fixed, when you could easily just do it in your driveway at home,\u201d said Noon.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Self-sufficient and proud of the knowledge they are each gaining.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Next week Pinellas County Schools is hosting a second co-ed automotive summer camp. They <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcsb.org\/learning\/summer-programs\/summer-enrichment-camps\/career-exploration-summer-enrichment-camps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">have several spots open<\/a> for to learn those same basic automotive skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Inside the garage at Northeast High School in St. Pete, things are on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4996,274,113,3075,2200,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-325644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-education","tag-app-top-stories","tag-education","tag-erin-murray","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}