Exemplary career technology schools do not exist in a vacuum. Almost without exception, a successful career tech program is at least in part a result of a strong partnership between the school and the community where it is located.
Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than at the Miami Valley Career Technology Center (MVCTC)-the second largest vocational education facility in the state of Ohio.
Here, school administrators and educators have closely collaborated with community leaders to identify and respond to area needs-creating programs that serve students, the school itself and the communities of southwestern Ohio, where the facility is located.
Whether it is by opening an alternative school to address a high school dropout crisis, or creating programs to respond to a severe shortage in health care workers, the MVCTC is finding different ways to establish itself as a top career tech school as well as a relevant and necessary asset in its community.
When young people drop out of high school, everyone loses.
The students themselves lose the most, as they try to make their way in the world without an education or marketable career skills. The community in which they live also loses out, as rates of crime and dependence on social services are closely tied to a lack of education. Schools lose since they are not fulfilling their mission.
Addressing this difficult issue has plagued communities around the country, both urban and rural. But at the MVCTC in Montgomery County, Ohio, a solution known as "Youth Connections" has proven to be a great success.
Youth Connections, an alternative high school established in the fall of 2000, has had amazing results in the past two years. Youth Connections is not a charter school, rather it is financed with state "per pupil" monies as a public school system.
The approach is nontraditional. Students receive considerable one-on-one attention from educators while pursuing a technology-driven, competency-based curriculum. They are also required to achieve at very high levels to get class credit.
Students have great flexibility in creating their schedules, as research indicates that individuals fitting the at-risk profile prefer academic environments that are available during afternoon and evening hours.
It is through the combined factors of a small size allowing for individual attention, a low student/teacher ratio to facilitate an inviting climate and a high level of flexibility to meet the needs of each student that the system works.
In addition, the school curriculum, instructional delivery and student intervention is directed by a "personal success plan" developed for each student. The plan includes school courses needed to meet graduation requirements, individualized instructional activities, support services from community agencies, career exploration, paid work experience and transitional services.
From its very beginnings, Youth Connections was a collaborative effort within the community.
In January 1998, a task force made up of corporate, community and government leaders in Montgomery County, Ohio, researched the issues around the region?s high school dropout rates. During this time, the Out-Of-School Youth Task Force found that 8,000 to 12,000 youth were leaving school annually because they did not fit into the traditional educational system. Ten of Montgomery County's 16 school districts had dropout rates greater than 20 percent.
Furthermore, according to County Commissioner Vicky Pegg, out-of-school youth were more than twice as likely to receive public assistance, and 82 percent of jail populations did not finish high school.
Armed with this information, a team of MVCTC and Montgomery County Education Service Center educators spent more than two years designing an alternative school to reconnect these young people with education in a smaller, more personal setting. The goal was to create a school flexible enough to meet at-risk students' needs with a career-focused education that would lead to long-term employment.
After the task force studied and visited many different alternative schools, closely identifying the target students and collecting best practices, they set about redefining the term "alternative."
Youth Connections was created to meet the needs of a very specific group of students who were ages 15 to 19, disconnected from school due to non-attendance or an inability to succeed in a regular school setting, or under expulsion for nonviolent reasons.
The school?located not on the MVCTC campus, but rather at the Montgomery Job Center in Dayton?operates on the concept of flexibility. Youth Connections offers a year-round, flexible schedule, any time from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Based on an individual profile prepared by instructors, guidance counselors, the students and their parents, the students pursue their own academic and occupational objectives through individualized, guided, interactive computer and Web-enhanced instruction. The technology-based school focuses on vocational and work components through use of the PLATO software curriculum and career-based programs by Buckeye Educational Systems.
Currently there are 32 school districts representing five counties that are served by Youth Connections. There are approximately 150 students enrolled at the school, with another 170 on a waiting list wanting to get in.
Youth Connections is aligned with the goals of both Miami Valley Career Technology Center and Sinclair Community College. These include students receiving a high school diploma or GED, receiving career awareness and information, exploring career preparation, and developing positive work ethics through mentor-guided work experience.
Each student has a teacher/mentor who works closely with him or her on a variety of issues. This mentor helps the student and his or her parents establish short- and long-term education and career goals.
Each student also creates an academic schedule that meets his or her individual needs. The "classroom" is actually an open computer learning lab with 36 work stations, all containing laptops with appropriate training software: PLATO or Citadel Virtual Learning Academy.
Students work from each training module to the next at their own pace-and not at the pace of the rest of the class or the teacher. The goal is to have no failures, and so each student must master 80 percent of all the material in a module before moving on.
When a student finishes working for the day, the software program bookmarks where- he or she left off in the course, and the student picks up at the bookmark the next day.
Constant monitoring of the student's progress by the mentor allows immediate help and feedback for the student.
In addition to the learning lab, the program also has a career technical lab designed to give students exposure to a variety of professions. They can either experience the different trades through one-hour simulations, or they can spend up to 10 hours in a trade area to get a more complete sense of a vocation. Through this hands-on lab, students get a real, practical look at how it would be to work in a given profession.
In its first two years in existence, Youth Connections has already garnered some pretty impressive statistics, according to Youth Connections Principal Jay Byrne:
- Out of 17 potential graduates in 2001, all 17 students passed the state-mandated proficiency tests, and 15 actually graduated.
- Seventy percent of students had passed all five parts of the proficiency tests by the end of the 2000-2001 school year.
- Staff made more than 5,000 home contacts during the 2000-2001 school year.
- Approximately 80 percent of parents attended parent/teacher conferences in November 2000.
- Attendance rates were 76 percent for the 2000-2001 school year.
Considering that the students coming to Youth Connections were thought to be failures in traditional education settings, these facts are even more remarkable.
According to MVCTC Superintendent Dr. John Boggess-a member of the Montgomery County Out-Of-School Youth Task Force-the result of this community collaboration has been "a tremendous success story."
"It's a whole new approach based on the fact that not all learners learn in the same way. This concept of individual education has been extremely well-received in this target population and in the community."
Boggess believes that the faculty and staff at MVCTC were particularly able to understand and respond to the specific needs of these students within the program.
"This effort has been an expansion of what we traditionally think of as the mission of career and technical educators," explains Dr. Boggess. "And what we found is that taking a proactive approach with an at-risk student can make a powerful difference."
Other community partners have great praise for the program's success.
"Youth Connections is part of our community's plan to develop a range of alternative learning opportunities for youth in our county," says County Administrator Debbie Feldman, the chair of the Montgomery County Out-Of-School Task Force.
"The creation of the school supported our task force recommendations to develop small student-focused alternative schools with caring staff to teenage students who have been turned off by education in the past.
"[The school] provides them with career exploration, career training and work experience opportunities...It is considered a model within our community of what can be accomplished by an alternative school."
The American Association of School Administrators selected Youth Connections as a recipient for its 2002 Leadership for Learning Award. The program has also served as a model for similar programs in the state and has been investigated by schools throughout the United States as well as schools in Japan and Bulgaria.
In addition to the very successful Youth Connections alternative school, the Miami Valley Career Technology Center (MVCTC) has other programs that respond to crucial community needs.
The national shortage of health care workers is a severe problem in this Ohio region. But the Allied Health, Medical Lab, Allied Health Tech Prep and Nursing programs at the MVCTC have received enormous praise from area health care programs and hospitals for the job they are doing to promote health care careers. The school offers both secondary and adult health education programs to meet the needs of this fast-growing field.
One of the biggest success stories they have had, according to Superintendent Dr. John Boggess, is the Adult Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) program.
"We have one of the highest pass rates on the state nursing board exam," says Dr. Boggess.
There are currently 200 students in the LPN program, half of whom will be finishing the program in December 2002.
According to Frances Shull, MVCTC director of nursing education, medical assistance, nurse aide training and massage therapy, many of these students will have nursing jobs waiting for them before they even finish the program.
"Students will go directly into the workforce...the demand in this profession right now is unreal," says Shull. "We are addressing a big community need with our program. Facilities are calling every day to find qualified people."
Shull says that many of the adult students who enroll in nursing programs are those who have been in other careers or raised families, but always wanted to be a nurse. "Often they are coming back to school to fulfill a dream," she says.
Their presence in the workplace can also fulfill the dreams of local hospitals and health care facilities that are finding it nearly impossible to find enough people to fill positions.
The MVCTC maintains a partnership with Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton. Students receive mentoring from the professionals there and often work as nurse's aides while they study to become LPNs. After the first quarter of study, LPN students can bypass aide training and take a test to become a certified nurse assistant. Other students may do home care in the community while studying as a student nurse.
There are also articulation agreements in place to fast track MVCTC students through Registered Nursing programs in a shorter period of time. This partnership between MVCTC and the local community college is another way that the community benefits and the health care worker crisis is tempered.
Other programs that address major needs in the medical field are the Nurse Aide Training Program and the Medical Assisting Program (which trains front and back doctor's office staff). In addition, the many secondary programs in the allied health fields are preparing students for the workforce or further postsecondary education.
In these and many other ways, the Miami Valley Career Technology Center of Ohio has established itself as a major economic partner of its community. The facility is operating in response to both the economic and social needs of its surroundings, and appears to continue to evolve in this direction.
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