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Valley school leaders learn of career resources for students
CANFIELD
Whether students are going to college or to careers after high school, there are key resources available here to prepare them, school board members from Mahoning County learned Wednesday.
The Mahoning County Educational Service Center invited board members from throughout the county to the Bistro at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center for the annual county boards of education meeting.
After a meal prepared by MCCTC culinary students, they listened to Eric Karmecy, Oh-Penn Pathways to Competitiveness Project, talk about steering students toward manufacturing jobs and what resources are available to help.
Laura Meeks, president of Eastern Gateway Community College, also talked about the importance of the college in not only providing two-year degrees, but as a stepping-stone to a four-year college education.
Manufacturing jobs of today are not the dirty, noisy, dangerous jobs of the past, Karmecy pointed out.
The mills have been replaced by workplaces with a strong emphasis on safety and technology.
“Today, 3-D printing is a popular recent innovation,” he said.
The area has a serious shortage in skilled production workers, he also pointed out.
There’s great pay, he said, in careers that include mechanical engineers, machinists, welders, fabricators and tool and die workers.
The Oh-Penn workforce region includes Mahoning, Columbiana and Trumbull counties in Ohio and Lawrence and Mercer counties in Pennsylvania. It has a workforce of 368,488 people.
Manufacturing provides 11 percent, or 40,000 jobs in the region, he said.
Oh-Penn was awarded a $6 million, 3-year Workforce Innovation Fund Grant in 2012, he said, and with that money, there are programs available for teachers.
They include an Educator in the Manufacturing Workplace program, in which a teacher spends 32 hours during the summer in the workplace, then creates a lesson plan; a “boot camp” in which teachers and guidance counselors go on a daylong tour of industry; and business career fairs.
Meeks said that Eastern Gateway offers 30 programs, its registered nurse program being the most popular.
Every course there transfers to a four-year college. “Fifty percent of our students intend to transfer,” She said.
“Why do they come?” she asked.
It’s close to home and affordable, even free for students with a 2.5 GPA and above because they qualify for a grant, she said.
The college also accepts students with lower ACTs, she continued.
There are also online courses and dual credit courses for high school students available.
Meeks said more effort has to be made in closing a gap between low-income students who apply for financial aid right after high school to go to college and those who qualify, but don’t apply.
There are 73.4 percent in the target schools who do qualify, but only 46 percent complete financial aid applications, she said.