A cooperative effort among area school districts to develop a center for vocational education is getting closer to fruition, USD 257 board members were told Monday evening.
Board President Tony Leavitt said he, board member Dan Willis and Superintendent of Schools Jack Koehn visited a center in Crawford County where students from six high schools are enrolled in such things as masonry, carpentry and welding.
“It’s impressive …” and with the prospect of what might unfold and involve local students “it’s as exciting as anything since I’ve been on the board,” Leavitt said. Willis was equally impressed, “with what’s available there and how they work together.”
“We would be ahead of the game if we get this together,” Koehn added.
The idea took seed locally about a year ago when Ray Maloney, who has a large salvage operation at the north edge of LaHarpe and owns the old Klein Tool Co. plant north of Moran, championed career education in conversations with Leavitt and others.
While anything concrete is still down the road, Koehn said additional meetings would be planned, with Allen Community and Neosho County Community colleges asked to participate. The community colleges have the personnel and access to state funding through Senate Bill 155, which means to meet the state’s increasing demand for a highly technical and skilled work force.
In earlier remarks, Jen Taylor, another board member, reviewed what she learned at a meeting of the Kansas Association of School Boards, including the projection that by 2020, 71 percent of Kansas jobs will require some post-secondary education. Koehn said that didn’t specifically mean a four-year college degree, but some training beyond high school. Nationally, the estimation is 65 percent of the work force.
Consequently, if USD 257 and area schools form a consortium with ACC and/or NCCC to tap into state funding and acquire teaching expertise, the schools can, as Koehn said, “be ahead of the game,” just as Pittsburg High and other schools in Crawford County already are.
TAYLOR said she also learned at the KASB conference that employees were eager for public schools to put more emphasis on soft skills — such things as showing up for work on time, getting along with others, communicating and even being enthusiastic in their approach to work.
Among ways mentioned that K-12 students could acquire and hone such skills are volunteering and learning about the world of work through job shadowing.
“The push in recent years has been to spend most of our time on academics,” Koehn said, a result of the emphasis placed on achievement tests. “It may be time to go back to the future and involve students more in learning soft skills.”
Buck Quincy, long-serving board member, questioned the 2020 prediction. “I find that hard to believe,” he said. “Not every kid is college material and I don’t think you need a college education to work in the oil patch.”
“It’s not what it used to be,” with more technical aspects than being a roughneck on a rig, was Koehn’s retort. “The 71 percent is some post-secondary education, not necessarily a four-year degree,” he added.
“You got me there,” Quincy admitted.
Goals set by a committee of 50 or so last week fit into the conversation.
The first goal is to improve student attitude, pride and personal responsibility.
Koehn pointed out the committee will meet again on Nov. 3 to hash out details that will create pathways for the goals to be achieved.
One thing evident from the committee session was “they all want great educations for our kids,” Koehn said. “It was a really good exercise.”
A STATISTICAL analysis showed this year’s headcount is 1,332 with total full-time equivalence of 1,260.2
The four grades at Iola High have 338 students, an average of 84.5 for each and 409 at the middle school, an average of 102-plus. The district has 205 third- and fourth-graders at Lincoln School, 203 first- and second-graders at Jefferson School and 86 kindergartners at McKinley School.
Individually, the first grade is largest with 115 students; the junior class the smallest at 79.
