Plan aim: Teaching job skills

School proposed in Saline County

BENTON -- Seven school districts are working together to develop a new school in Saline County that would provide career training to high school students.

If built, the New Saline County Career Technology Center would blend courses aimed at getting students jobs immediately after high school with training in technology and other fields that college-bound students typically need.

"It is not intended to take the place of college," said Benton Superintendent Jeff Collum. "It's actually to help enhance and complement students that would want to go on and obtain a four-year degree or two-year degree. It is absolutely a partnership with higher ed."

The school would provide practical electives to students enrolled in school districts that take students from Saline County. Those are Benton, Bryant, Bauxite, Harmony Grove, Glen Rose, Fountain Lake and Sheridan.

The school was discussed Wednesday at a career technology center executive committee meeting held in the Benton Area Chamber of Commerce's building.

Collum said students drop out of high school because they often don't see a practical application to the skills they learn.

Lamont Cornwell, executive director of the Saline County Economic Development Corp., said local employers can't find workers with the skills they need.

Allowing students to take hands-on classes that teach job skills helps local businesses and decreases the dropout rate, both said.

"There's lots of research that shows that students are going to be much more successful in that type of setting," Collum said. "Everybody wins."

The proposed career technology center is roughly modeled on a similar center in Frisco, Texas, 30 miles north of Dallas.

That center includes 30 programs of study including health science, information technology, hospitality, tourism, agriculture, construction and graphic design.

It stresses hands-on experience. Students work in local businesses and build what they design.

Cornwell said programs at the Saline County center would be established with the input of local businesses and probably change every few years to respond to the local economy.

A consultant, Stantec Architecture Inc. of Michigan has been hired for $135,000 to figure out which programs would be included and where the high school would be located, and come up with a potential design.

The budget also needs to be worked out.

To build the school, the committee is taking its proposal to private foundations and companies. Cornwell said the committee would look at every source of funding that does not involve raising taxes, but could not rule out that possibility.

Once the school is built, the seven school districts would share the cost of operating the center, Cornwell said.

That's less of a burden because some existing funding would follow the students from their home high schools, state money is available for vocational training, and existing training programs could be consolidated into the new school, he said.

He also said having a new school would ease crowding at some of the other campuses.

Collum said funding is already an issue for the county's career education efforts, and there aren't enough options for high school students interested in trade skills.

He displayed pictures of the Saline County Career Center, which is run by Pulaski Technical College on the former campus of Alcoa Reynolds in Bauxite.

High school students that attend the center work in trailers and older brick buildings. It's near the Saline County Landfill.

"There's a disconnect" between what we say about the importance of career education and 'what the kids see,'" Collum said. "If we're going to start talking about [career and technical education] programming and 21st century education skills and workforce development, we're going to have to change what we're doing."

In an interview, Kim Roberson, interim director of the Saline County Career Center, said her program has to turn potential students away because the program's already full, funding is a concern and it's a struggle to purchase modern equipment.

"There's many of these kids that are looking for their path," she said. "All they know is they're supposed to go to college."

About 250 students from Benton, Bryant, Bauxite and Harmony Grove school districts attend classes at the center, which offers programs in automotive technology, automotive collision repair, cosmetology and medical professions education.

Walter Burgess, vice president engineering for Power Technology, a laser manufacturer in Alexander, said he would support a specialized school to provide mechanical skills to students.

"This, I think, is a very innovative, unique idea. I think it is successful. The model schools that this is being modeled after have a proven track record of success," he said in an interview. "I am supportive of anything that adds to the various ways that we can educate our students, as long as that aligns with workforce needs."

Burgess is also chairman of the Arkansas STEM Coalition. He said he hears from manufacturers that can't fill jobs -- even if they have fairly general requirements.

"We are a manufacturing company so we want people who will show up to work every day, like to work with their hands and then have some skills related to their job," he said. "Arkansas is not known for it's manufacturing background. It's known for agriculture, so we have a little trouble -- not huge -- but a little bit of trouble finding people who meet our workforce needs."

Metro on 10/01/2015

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