The earliest form of education available in what is now Cullman County was“ subscription schools.” These were small, often single-room buildings or churches that were scattered across the county near the most populated areas
Residents would offer donations in hopes of scraping together enough funds to hire an educator to teach their children for a few months during the winter when they were less needed to help with household chores. The floors were mostly comprised of compacted dirt, and children would gather nearby logs to fashion into seats. Students were often taught real-world skills they would use on their family’ s farms, along with basic reading and math lessons. Writing was typically reserved for older students. One account documented in a new book,“ History and Evolution of Cullman County Schools”— written by a group of local, veteran educators and available at the North Alabama Agriplex— describes a student’ s account of making their own ink from foraged poke berries and whittling a makeshift pen to complete their penmanship lessons in the late 1870’ s.
While this glimpse into the past may be nearly unrecognizable from the education system we have come to know today, one thing that has remained a primary focus for the Cullman County School District is its mission to prepare students for their futures by offering courses that teach skills that will directly benefit them as they enter the workforce. This goal is most evident in both the achievements and the future expansion of today’ s Cullman
Area Technology Academy.
The current CATA Director, Susan Patrick, said it has always been the school’ s goal to work alongside local industries to prepare students to meet the demands of the job market after they graduate, since the school first opened in 1970. Programs such as Welding, HVAC and Automotive Service have long been a core part of the career center’ s catalog, but recent additions such as Engineering, Precision Machining and Cyber Security— and the school’ s name change in the mid 2010’ s— are a reflection of shifting modern industry’ s more technology driven demands.
“ If a student wants to do auto service or welding, we have that. If they want to do cyber security, engineering or become an educator, we have that as well,” Patrick said.“ This is not your vocational school from back in the day that maybe just had a few programs. We have many career pathways for our students.”
“ It’ s not just‘ come in and get your hands dirty. It’ s a lot different,” added CATA Assistant Director and Principal Adam Edmonson.
The shift became most notable in the early 2010’ s with the addition of a robotics program, and by 2019, school board members had begun discussing the idea of establishing a new“ Engineering Academy.”
In 2022, the district launched its first“ Drone Wars” competition, which featured 7th graders from each school navigating an obstacle course at Wallace State Community College. As recently as September 2025, a newly converted“ STEM Bus” was unveiled that will offer elementary students a better opportunity to explore the world of science through handson experiments.
Easily the most notable recent advancement in local education, however, was the Cullman County Board of Education’ s announcement in August of a new, state-of-the-art STEM Academy to be located on Hwy. 31 in southcentral Cullman.
When completed, the new STEM Academy will replace CATA as the county’ s career technology center in a more central location in close proximity to Wallace State and Cullman’ s Industrial Park.
Edmonson said one major benefit to relocating the campus will be the ability to build a facility tailored to the school’ s newer, more technologically advanced programs from the ground up.
“ Having the ability to have the programs we have now, but to get in a new facility and have it set up exactly how we want to is a game changer for us,” Edmonson said.
Patrick said the school will maintain its current catalog of programs, but there have been early discussions to add additional programs such as animal sciences, drone technology, aviation and business / financing. The school also plans to incorporate more Artificial Intelligence programs into its courses and that a future“ phase 2” for the new campus would include more arts programming.
“ We’ re building for the future. We’ re trying to have a space where we can add what we need as the next new thing begins to emerge in the workforce,” Patrick said.
Eric Gunter works his way up a pole as instructor Justin Miller holds a safety line during a course that trains future power line workers.
Mesha Acuff, right, and Kamden Sturgeon take a closer look during CATA’ s Automotive Technology class.
Levi Spinks, right, and Travis‘ Fisher’ Holcomb answer questions during a Q & A session in CATA’ s HVAC class.
PROFILE 2026 | 9