A proposal to establish a satellite career-education center for high school students in Paris cleared one hurdle this week with a state board approving the project.
The next hurdle involves finding the money to pay for it, project leaders said.
Paris School District Superintendent Wayne Fawcett and Arkansas Tech University-Ozark campus Chancellor Bruce Sikes presented a proposal Thursday to the State Board of Career Education to develop a center that would offer courses related to health care and industrial technology for high school students.
The proposal involves the cooperation of the school district with the college, community and business partners, Fawcett said. The center would serve students from the Paris, County Line and Scranton school districts.
All six board members voted in favor of the proposal.
"This is exactly what we like to see happen where there's a collaborative effort between the school districts and industry coming together to identify a need," said Phil Taylor, the board chairman, who lives in Jonesboro.
Such a center will give students training they need for jobs in their local communities, Taylor said.
An ongoing concern is the lack of funding for establishing more career centers, Taylor said.
"It eventually depends if the Legislature will fund it," Taylor said.
Career centers approved by the State Board of Career Education are eligible for state technical center funding, but new programs can't receive funding without the Legislature approving more funding for career centers, he said.
The state board hears a couple of proposals each year for centers like the one planned in Paris. On Thursday, the board also approved a career center in Mountain Home that is connected with Arkansas State University-Mountain Home.
Mountain Home Superintendent Lonnie Myers said ASU-Mountain Home opened the center this school year with funding from alternate sources. About 40 of the district's high school students are taking classes there with scholarships provided by the Mountain Home Education Foundation.
In Paris, the satellite campus would go into a manufacturing plant that has been vacant and is known as the "pants factory." The nonprofit Logan County Industrial Development Corp. owns the building and has been working on a lease with a storm-shelter manufacturer that has agreed to sublease part of the space for the satellite campus for $1 per year, Fawcett said.
High school students who enroll would spend part of their school day taking courses at their high school campuses and part of the day taking courses at the satellite, Fawcett said.
The satellite would expand the reach of the Arkansas Career Center, a career and technology center in Russellville that offers career-oriented courses and college credit to 550 students in 11 school districts, Sikes said. The career center is connected with the Arkansas Tech University-Ozark campus. The college will oversee the instruction.
The college will provide a platform of courses to prepare students for work or continuing their education at the Ozark campus, Sikes said.
"This was a community effort that is showcasing a model of career education, which partners public and private constituents together," Sikes said.
The project will require funding to renovate space in the manufacturing plant to meet standards and for operations, Fawcett said. He will begin working to estimate those costs in early 2015.
"If we can get those two funding streams, that's the next major hurdle," Fawcett said.
NW News on 12/06/2014