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Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008

Career Academy plans still in works, but waiting on budget

The waiting game is on for the Houston County Board of Education in its push for the Career Academy.

After making a presentation to state officials last month, Barbara Wall, school system director of career, technical and agricultural education, said they expected to hear by Nov. 6 whether or not they qualified for a grant.

But last Wednesday, Wall sent a note to steering committee members to the effect that "due to budget constraints," the announcement on the potential $3.2 million career academy grant has been postponed until February.

"We are remaining positive and hopeful that the funds will be available in the near future and that a sizable portion of those funds will be allocated to our partnership," Wall wrote in an e-mail Friday.

The academy is a planned charter school run by a partnership involving the school system, the business community, chambers of commerce, Middle Georgia Technical College and Robins Air Force Base.

The active participation of the business community sets it apart from normal vocational-technical schools, and it's based on a similar setup in Coweta County.

Wall has spearheaded the steering committee and led it through a series of meetings to prepare for the grant-seeking presentation last month to state officials.

Those attending the presentation in Atlanta included Superintendent David Carpenter; board vice-chairman Tom Walmer; Ivan Allen, president of Middle Georgia Technical College; college officials Paul Hibbits, Gerri Sorrell and Jim Newton; Max Wyche and Karl Abernathy from the Robins Air Force Base Air Logistics Center; and Shan Cooper and John Gustafson from Lockheed Martin.

In the 20-minute presentation, Wall and others stressed the working partnerships among Houston County Schools, Middle Georgia Technical College, the Air Logistics Center, Lockheed Martin, the Warner Robins Area and Perry Area chambers of commerce and 21 other businesses, Wall said.

Particular emphasis was placed on the school system's 82.9 percent high school graduation rate, she said, and the system's goal to increase it with the career academy.

"We are still losing 17 percent of our students and we are not satisfied with this," Wall said. "The career academy is an example of a proactive way to increase graduation and to eliminate dropouts."

In addition, more than 3,900 students in the county are currently enrolled in career, technical and agricultural education programs in the middle and high schools, she said, a career academy "will enable us to provide an avenue to connect our students' interest to the needs of our workforce community."

According to the latest Census update, there are 66,000 total workers in Houston County. Of that number, almost 15 percent have not graduated from high school or earned a GED, 67 percent have earned a high school diploma and some college training, and 18 percent have college degrees, she said. The challenge to the community is to ensure the workforce is trained to meet current Ð and future Ð job requirements, she added.

"One of the most promising ways to begin training our future workforce is to form a career academy with much input from business and industry," she said.

Some 23 percent of Houston County's total workforce is employed at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, she noted. The center, which supports the career academy, has a long history of supporting educational initiatives at Middle Georgia Tech and the school system.

Preliminary results from a needs assessment survey conducted in conjunction with the chambers of commerce showed most of local need to be in aerospace, education, manufacturing and healthcare, she said.

"We submitted a quality grant proposal and delivered an outstanding presentation," Wall said. "We just have to wait and see."