Adult Continuing Education

Ohio cannot remain a highly paid, low-skilled nation. The demographic revolution gives Ohio a tremendous potential for advantage in the global market.

If Ohio vocational education does their job well, it will position well for engaging in a truly global society. "This will dominate the new millennium,"Hayward said. Hayward's philosophy echoes the comments of the two newest members of the San Diego city school board, John de Beck and Sue Braun, who say that revamping the district's vocational courses is at the tops of their agendas. But soon-to-be board President Shirley Weber said the district's vocational education programs are high-tech and have won many awards at schools like Crawford, Clairemont and Kearny high schools.

A big problem, Weber said, is attitude. "When you say vocational education in Southeast San Diego, people conjure up negative images. They see these days of old, when you took auto and wood shop and weren't prepared for a thinking job. But now these courses do prepare students for thinking jobs," Weber said.

Tina Florence is a 16-year-old junior from Orrville majoring in business technologies at the Wayne County Career Center. Next year, when she is a senior, she will be a member of the first graduating class of the new Business and Management Technology Academy that will open here in August. Designed as a way to allow students to learn at each one's own pace in individualized studies and to get students out of the classroom and into the workplace sooner, this new academy changes the focus of vocational education from specific course credits to specialized career plans.

The reorganization of the Career Center's business curriculum was approved last year after a year of study by the Center's board. The new academy will become the first to be implemented among all of Ohio's vocational secondary schools, according to Wayne Career Center vocational supervisor Larry Hickman. The academy is being made possible, in part, by a portion of the $99,905 grant the Center received this year from the Ohio School to Work continuation program under its "Beyond the Boundaries of a Building" funding project. Mentoring relationships with local people working in each student's chosen career will be an important part of the program, as will internships at local businesses.

Developing the Business and Management Technology Academy curriculum required close cooperation among the Career Center, state education officials, and local business consultants including Steve Bushman and Chris Schmid of Luk Inc., of Wooster, who have worked closely with the academy planners. A handful of other vocational schools around the state are also planning to go to the academy system of business career education, Hickman said.

For the Career Center, one of the most obvious changes in the business curriculum under the academy will be that adults as well as high school juniors and seniors will be able to enroll, as tuition-paying students in the Center's adult continuing education department.