COLUMBIANA COUNTY Center staffers to attend conference

Graduates said workplace mentors had a significant impact on their careers.
LISBON -- About a dozen Columbiana County Career and Technical Center administrators and teachers will discuss the successes of their School-to-Work program graduates at an education conference in July.
Beverly Grappy, the career center's School-to-Work coordinator, said the conference on the High Schools That Work project will be July 9-12 in Nashville. The career center is one of 1,100 schools in 26 states involved in the High Schools That Work project, she said.
Grappy said school officials have participated since 1998 in High Schools That Work. School officials survey graduates every two years to see how their career center training, and the School-to-Work program in particular, has prepared them for the work force.
Grappy said the School-to-Work program helps career center juniors and seniors gain work-force experience before graduation by spending part of their school day at a job site. Each student has workplace mentors who give instruction and feedback throughout the experience.
Grads' praise
She said the career center was chosen to make a presentation at the conference because graduates said the curriculum has quality academic and technical content. "Everything we do is geared toward improvement," she said. "There is a clear mission for success."
Also significant is that 70 percent of the 2002 graduates said workplace mentors made a significant impact on their careers, she said.
High Schools That Work sets goals for students to attain in reading, math and science, both in the classroom and in how the students apply that learning in the workplace, she said.