Community Pleads for Career, Tech Programs; School Board Can't Afford Them All

By Amber Lester Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Parents, community members and recent alumni pleaded with the Williamsburg-James City County School Board to preserve the division’s career and technical education programs at the board’s work session Tuesday.

Of 25 speakers who appeared before the board, 17 asked to keep programs that are being recommended for consolidation or elimination, including marketing, technology, Family and Consumer Sciences, STEP and Technical Cooperative Education. But by the end of their discussion, the board members seemed to agree it is not financially possible to continue supporting all of those programs.

The programs are being reviewed due to low enrollment, according to Dianna Lindsay, executive director of secondary education for the division. She told the board the selection of courses offered is driven by what students choose to take. “We are not reducing, eliminating or ridding ourselves of any cooperative programs or opportunities for students to work beyond the school program,” she said.

Lindsay said she sat down with counselors and principals to tally how many students had enrolled in CTE courses for next year. After reviewing the tallies, they found traditional courses, such as Principals of Marketing or Introduction to Early Parenting, were not filling up as fast as courses dealing with digital technology or sports medicine.

She also mentioned the state has requested several changes to curriculums in the next two years, including the addition of a mandated economic and personal finance course to be taught by CTE faculty. The state will also request divisions offer two CTE diplomas – standard and advanced. The school division also hopes to set up a middle school program that will allow seventh- and eighth-grade students to earn high school credit in computer technology classes.

“What we are saying is that we need to follow the path the students are leading us,” Lindsay said.

Several speakers interpreted the review as budget-driven, although the division’s operating budget for the 2010-11 school year was approved last month. Patrick Sensiba asked why the board is discussing budget issues after approving a budget, adding that he would urge the board to question the administration’s agenda.

In the STEP program, for example, program coordinator Robert Horvath is employed full-time to instruct the students; two classes are taught by Jamestown High School teachers. To enter the program, rising seniors are required to have completed all necessary credits with the exception of English and Government. Although STEP English teacher Sheila Glennon told the board that 17 students had signed up for the program, Lindsay said only seven had completed the requirements to be eligible. She said it was not “fiscally responsible” to have a full-time teacher instructing seven students when the average high school teacher instructs 75 to 150 students a year.

The division has not released any enrollment data for the programs in question. In response to a request from WYDaily, Career and Technical Education Coordinator Barbara Simmons said enrollment data was only readily available for the past two years; she said enrollment numbers from previous years would have to be manually counted.

In her remarks during citizen’s comment, Glennon told the board that enrollment could have been higher if the STEP program had better opportunities for recruitment. She said all recruitment efforts were teacher-led and that the program was denied two requests to host informational assemblies. The teachers then visited classrooms and told students about the program during class time, recruiting 17 students.

Several citizens advocated for the STEP program, a Jamestown High pilot program that pairs high school students with area businesses. Students in the program alternate weeks of work with weeks of class, while learning about resume writing, interviewing and writing business plans. Rick Batten told the board the program was unique in that it provides the community with high-quality workers and a tax base. “The STEP program pays for itself,” he said. “How many programs are public-private partnerships that can show themselves as revenue-positive?”

Eric Bose, a 2009 alumnus of the program, told the audience he is now working as an apprentice at Northrop Grumman. “I am a tax-paying citizen, looking to buy a house, and I have a 401K,” he said. “How many 19-year-olds can say they have a 401K?”

The board lamented its position, but the members seemed to reach consensus that STEP could no longer be funded; they did not, however, vote on the issue at the work session. Member John Alewynse objected to Lindsay’s suggestion that the division follow students’ lead, however.

“On principal, I’m a little bit uneasy with what I regard as a rather simplistic and reductionist approach to deciding what programs stay and what programs go in regards to where children are leading,” he said. “Adults need to lead.”

The division plans to recommend the board eliminate the STEP program, which as a pilot program is not accredited by the Virginia Department of Education. The division will also will attempt to build its sports medicine courses to be taught by certified athletic trainers and consolidate Family and Consumer Sciences at Lafayette High School. Lindsay indicated students who have already signed up for these courses would be selecting new courses in the fall.