School Districts, Employers Team Up to Expand Vocational Education | Education

After years of high-skill job growth in the Pikes Peak region, its public school districts and businesses are making strides in working together to create the workforce of tomorrow.

While each local school district has historically offered its own career and technical education programs, also called “career education” or “technical education” over the years, industry and education leaders alike have agreed that the community’s need for such education is growing outside the district. .

Colorado Springs School District 11 Career and Technical Education Director Duane Roberson recalled what a local employer told him years ago while speaking at a recent career summit.

“He said, ‘Dwayne, I have a business in one school district, I live in a second school district, and my kids are in a third school district,'” Roberson said. “He said, ‘I don’t know all the school districts, but I know I need manpower for every school district.’

In subsequent years, Roberson, also a committee member of the Colorado Association of Career and Technical Administrators, worked with neighboring school districts to support all proposals throughout the region. He and program directors from other districts meet monthly to discuss and share experiences from each other’s programs.

During this time, new facilities were also built and programs were expanded to train students in the skills needed for growing industries in the region. Beginning this school year, Calhan RJ-1 School District opened a new facility that includes nine welding shops, woodworking and metal shops, a full kitchen and new classrooms. In October, District 49 cut the ribbon on the new Career Technical Education wing at Vista Ridge High School to improve student achievement.

Much of the expanded proposals are a shared vision of workforce development across the board.

“We are 17 strong school districts that communicate with each other regularly and collaboratively,” Roberson told the crowd. “We are constantly meeting with management and encouraging teachers to communicate with all school districts. Because the engineering program in one school district can be just as strong as the engineering program in another school district.”

The Career Development Summit, held Oct. 29 at Fountain-Fort Carson High School, brought together local business leaders, educators and students from across the region to highlight the impact of career and technical education in the region.

The summit was the first of its kind and was organized by the Pikes Peak Business Education Association (PPBEA) to give participants the opportunity to explore how potential partnerships can meet the workforce needs of the ever-growing local economy. School district representatives and business leaders met with local students and then began meetings to discuss the current situation in various career fields such as hospitality, healthcare, skilled trades, culinary arts and manufacturing.

According to PPBEA, the career fields with the most openings in Teller and El Paso counties this year were nursing and health care and cybersecurity and computer science (20,323 and 18,082 openings, respectively).

Likewise, El Paso County’s October job progress report ranked registered nurses, software engineers and maintenance/repair workers among the top 10 jobs. In the same report, the number of workers available per vacancy was calculated as 0.87.

To address these workforce needs, PPBEA was created in 2019 to increase the local talent pool, help address chronically unfilled jobs, and improve K-12 education through career-related training for students such as internships and visits jobs. Operating under the auspices of the Pikes Peak Workforce Center, it has reached more than 12,000 students in the past year.

PPBEA Director Bob Gemignani said it was formed after his tenure as workforce training manager at D-49, where he helped develop and implement a job training program and business partnerships and other school districts took notice. Despite recent progress in this collaboration, he said student engagement remains key to filling current gaps in the work.

“At scale, we need these high school students to be better informed and more motivated so that they look at these preparatory programs and not just take regular academic classes and throwaway classes,” he said.

Recent Answers

According to the state’s 2023 Talent Report, approximately 35% of the top second-tier jobs required only a high school diploma or equivalent, indicating a shift in demand toward training requirements rather than college degrees for some positions. The report also notes that lower educational requirements for in-demand positions will likely lead employers to select candidates with certain types of previous job training.

Legislative measures have been taken throughout the state to address overall workforce needs. Recent state laws such as Senate Bill 24-104 and House Bill 22-1215 have helped better connect high school students with career paths such as career and technical education and apprenticeships. and post-secondary education courses available to them. Recommendations from the State’s Secondary, Postsecondary and Vocational Integration Task Force emphasize the need for increased connections to access, report, and track all career options throughout the state. He also recommends that every Colorado resident have free access to a quality short-term degree, quality on-the-job learning experience, or college credits by age 21.

In Colorado Springs, the position of Workforce Administrator was recently reinstated by Mayor Yemi Mobolade to achieve the economic development goals outlined in his strategic framework. These goals include creating partnerships among K-12 school districts to create “tomorrow’s workforce” jobs and training focused on the region’s industries, and specifically supporting cybersecurity and space education to become a direct source of higher education and industry.

With that in mind, city Human Resources Administrator Robin Lovewell met with local high schools and program directors to review their current student offerings and establish connections with local businesses for internships or presentations. She noted the growth and expansion of what is now considered career and technical education and what is specifically offered in the Pike Peak region.

“I think back to when you think about voice, you think more about transactions… but there are a lot more of them,” Lovewell said. “There is business, there is aviation, there is manufacturing, there is healthcare, graphics, multimedia. So, there are so many different career fields that kids have the opportunity to get trained in.”

Forward

As for El Paso and Teller counties, recent trends show no signs of slowing down.

Earlier this year, the state Department of Education approved a new innovation zone for D-11 that will collaborate with high school students, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Center for Cybersecurity and Research, the National Cyber ​​Security Center and industry professionals. Students will also be able to earn dual enrollment at UCCS and Pike Peak State College, as well as receive certificates for their classwork.

Colorado Springs D-11 Innovation Zone Approved by State Board of Education

Lovewell also said D-11 is in talks with city officials about possibly forming a new group of students with a focus on city government.

In addition to the UCCS undergraduate aerospace engineering program, which launched in 2022, a new engineering center opened in 2024, housing state-of-the-art research laboratories and teaching facilities. Pikes Peak State College began offering a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity this year.

Pikes Peak State College launches bachelor’s degree program in cybersecurity

Lewis-Palmer D-38 is slated to complete construction of a brand new Career and Technical Education Center by the start of the 2025-26 school year, which will provide students with the opportunity to earn both certificates and college credits to advance their careers. Career paths mentioned include manufacturing and skilled trades, as well as new offerings such as healthcare and cybersecurity.

To the east, the Pikes Peak Board of Cooperative Educational Services has approved a site for a new vocational school campus near Peyton. If completed, it will serve students in rural school districts such as Big Sandy, Calhan, Edison, Elbert, Ellicott, Hanover, Miami-Yoder and Peyton.

Trade school campus east of Colorado Springs gets approval

In terms of established programs in the region, interest continues to grow.

During her visit to Air Academy High School in August, Lovewell recalled that there were 100 people on the waitlist for the school’s aviation program.

To keep that momentum going, Gemignani said student participation in career and technical education can continue to grow if it is presented as core class work rather than voluntary class work for students, given the opportunities they can provide.

“By the time they graduate, they will probably have three or four classes of college credits,” he said. “They have college credits that potentially qualify them for entry-level jobs in this career cluster after high school. rather, set them on the path to making a really strong decision about going to college.”

For students like Fountain-Fort Carson senior Tautinei Aflava, her career and technical education classes gave her a chance to find her calling in life in a way that her major teachers could not.

Having previously struggled with attendance and grades, she now has a 3.2 GPA and was recently named CTE Student of the Year by the Colorado Career and Technical Education Association.

In addition to the practical job skills she gained from classes such as culinary arts and interior design, she said she also learned how to communicate effectively with others, how to enter the workforce and take on leadership roles. Although she didn’t know about the state award until she was announced as this year’s winner, she speculates that it was the focus and dedication she brought to her daily classroom activities that earned her the honor.

“It really showed not only me but other people that I could do what I wanted and it proved to me that I wasn’t as stupid as I thought I was,” she said.

In her current classes, she gets out and works with the local Fountain community, educating them about career and technical education offerings. Going forward, she says she hopes to continue serving her community through the skills she developed in these classes.

“I want to continue this community service,” she said. “I want to be a voice for people who feel like they are not being heard.”