DEARBORN — There are teenagers who can’t wait to get out of high school and go to college, and there are teenagers who can’t wait to get out of high school and go to work.

Both sets of students need help preparing for what comes next, and Dearborn Public Schools has two programs in place to try to provide for those on each end of the spectrum.

“For me, I feel like every student is different,” said Hussein Bazzi, 19, a senior at the Michael Berry Career Center, which aims to get kids ready for work right out of high school.

“They leave here with the skill to be able to get a job,” said principal Winifred Green.

Green is also principal of the Dearborn Center for Math, Science and Technology (DCMST), the district’s other specialized education center, intended for advanced students preparing hard for college.

Green said that both centers have out-of-the-box teaching approaches, in which students don’t just sit and learn, but engage in long-term, hands-on projects, like participating in Internet science fairs.

She said the two entities are not schools, but center-based programs.

“They’re not just sitting and getting information… They get to start the project and see it from beginning to the end.”

The second floor of the Berry Center has no walls between classes, creating an environment with crossover in instruction.

“They build relationships with their teachers… They have to work as a team,” Green said.

Students spend half-days at their regular schools, then drive or are bussed to a center for the other half.

Green said the DCMST was established in 2001 to accommodate advanced math and science students because the district was loosing students, and funds, to private, elite high schools like Cranbrook and Detroit Country Day.

The Berry Center was created in 2004 to alleviate overcrowding in some of the high schools, while offering an alternative to students looking to go to work right out of high school, without as much focus on college.

Green said most DCMST students have interest in medicine, research, technology and engineering, while the Berry Center students prepare for immediate careers in culinary arts, health care, information technology and business.

Bazzi, who attends traditional classes at Fordson High in the morning and takes the bus to the Berry Center for intense computer classes in the afternoon, said the second half of his day is tougher, but more fulfilling.

“The major difference here, here they’re preparing you for a career. By the time we finish this two-semester program, you can go out and get a job. It’s kind of a head start.”

He said he thinks the programs could be of particular interest to Arab Americans, because “the community is sort of career-focused.”

John Bayerl, a teacher at the Berry Center, said the vocational program tends to reignite fire in students who at one time may not have been high achievers.

He said he connects the curriculum through elaborate projects to things the students can relate to in their own neighborhoods.

His students have designed skate parks, devised emergency evacuation plans, and they’ve helped the city of Dearborn’s water department use global positioning and geographic information systems to map out all its water distribution, converting all data from paper to electronic format.

“We teach them very high, cutting-edge knowledge,” Bayerl said. “We need to get these kids ready to step up to the challenge.”

He said some of the technology he’s teaching 11th and 12 graders, he didn’t learn until studying for his master’s degree.

“We prepare them to use whatever technology comes out,” he said.

“We teach them high standards, how to show up every day, how to use the computer.

“All we seem to do in schools today is test and test and test.”

The students studying for jobs in health care, he said, often get to care for actual patients.

Bayerl relishes using alternative project methods to motivate average students, who often end up bringing their grade point averages up over the 3.0 mark.

“I want those ‘I’m getting a D because I don’t care’ students,” he said. “They weren’t C students all their lives because they were dumb.”

He said the real-life experience the students of the vocational are exposed to boosts their interest, their confidence, their grades and their abilities.

“Every year I make the classes harder and every year they show me that it’s not hard enough,” Bayerl said.

“They’re teaching you leadership,” Bazzi said.

“Mr. Bayerl wants to get these students jobs.”

The Michael Berry Career Center offers programs for 11th and 12th grade students attending Fordson, Edsel Ford and Dearborn High Schools.

The Dearborn Center for Math, Science and Technology offers programs for 9th through 12th grade students.

Parents can inquire about admissions by visiting their respective websites, at //berry.dearbornschools.org and //dcmst.dearbornschools.org, or by calling their front offices at 313.827.4800 or 313.827.2720.