Public schools … not just for kids

Four people from the community have been learning a lot about gas combinations, proper flux compounds and how metal responds under various conditions. They're learning about a new trade, but more importantly, they're helping pave the way for others to learn trades in Valley schools.

"I have a lot better opinion of welders now -- although I'm still not sure I want to pay them 40 bucks an hour," joked KMBQ Radio account executive and on-air personality Bob Dehn, who took part in the class. "I'm going to use it -- I'll probably end up buying some equipment and using it."

The class was comprised of two local media representatives -- Dehn and myself as a Frontiersman reporter -- along with Chris Dillon, construction manager with Alutiiq Manufacturing Contractors, a subsidiary of the Afognak Native Corp. currently building manufactured homes at Port MacKenzie for shipment to the Bush. Pete Christopher, general manager of the Mat-Su Miners baseball team and member of the Palmer Chamber of Commerce's board of directors, rounded out the group.

The group was selected by members of the Mat-Su School District's Welding Advisory Board to run through the pilot offering of a program that will eventually be offered to adults in the Valley. Although others were asked to be part of the trial run, four participants took part in the course in the end.

Shell Ewing, owner of Weld Air Alaska, is president of the advisory committee and was involved in developing the pilot program. He said the first-round participants were picked to help get the word out about the opportunities available through the welding lab.

"We looked at a very broad spectrum of people who could either benefit from knowledge or usage of the facility; i.e. Alutiiq shareholders who have crossed the line into metal fabrication in buildings," Ewing said, "and community spokespeople."

There were several goals for the pilot offering. The initial classes served as a testing arena to see how classes could be scheduled, what could be achieved within a three-hour time frame, and what bugs needed to be worked out before setting up adult classes in other vo-tech fields such as automotive or nursing.

"You [class members] were really our pilot for other adult programs," Ewing said. "You're setting the foundation for what we learn from this."

It was also a great reason to get people talking about Colony's new state-of-the-art, 20-bay welding lab, which opened in April after a hard effort to get the facility completed by board members and others involved with the program.

The program faltered for a moment early in the year and looked like it was a bust, according to Kris Forrester, director of the school district's career and technical education department. She said after she found out the district was $3 million short of the money needed to complete the lab, she called Ewing in despair, while on the road to Anchorage. Before she reached Anchorage, she got another call from Ewing, who had found someone to help with a key element of the project. After hanging up with Ewing, she said, she got call after call from people in the industry with offers to help complete the preparations.

Forrester said the welding lab is part of a much larger, multi-faceted effort on behalf of the district to develop a strong vocational and technical education system for Mat-Su schools.

Job training -- not

just for employees

Forrester serves on the Alaska Workplace Investment Board, which is geared toward building a a workforce system for Alaska that is "useful, accessible and understandable to all of the system's customers," according to information from the board's Web site. It oversees the policies of state and federally funded job training and vocational education programs. Through her work on the board, she said, the district has gained a tremendous amount of information, and may be reevaluating the way education is looked at in Alaska.

"Traditionally, K-12 education has not been included as a part of the workforce because they're education -- and this is the workforce," Forrester said. "We have been talking about career pathways programs … and we should be talking about the workforce system … How often does higher education and secondary education and the employer and the trainer … sit at the table and say 'Here's what they need to reach the next step'?"

More and more, she said, those involved in workforce programs are beginning to understand that training students to become part of a vibrant economy doesn't begin when the student graduates from high school, or when they take their first job. The process of training for eventual employment begins much earlier -- in elementary school.

Industry representatives, Forrester said, are recognizing that, while students may not select what type of job they want to hold until they reach the end of their high school education, they start eliminating job types much earlier. To that end, she said, teachers are starting to see programs developed by industry officials offered as pieces of curriculum to young students. She cited one example of members of the Associated General Contractors bringing in kits with hands-on projects relating to math and science into third- and fifth-grade classrooms. Along with the kits, Forrester said, come industry representatives who will help teach the components of the curriculum and, in the meantime, teach students about their trade. It's an effort, Forrester said, on behalf of industry to prepare for the coming baby bust -- the impending retirement of Baby Boomers that is likely to deplete the workforce significantly.

It's also a plan, she said, to let people know there's a shifting tide in the economy. About 30 percent of the workforce, she said, is made up of professionals, with most of the remainder made up by trade groups. Although professionals previously brought in higher salaries, she said, the tide is changing. And, along with the change, people in industry with added skills -- foreign languages, Auto-CAD knowledge, management skills or information technologies, for example -- can earn as much or more than their professional counterparts.

"We should help them find something that they love that makes them money, rather than them doing something just for the money," Forrester said. "This is really good news. We have kids now who can really understand that. They're capable of going to any college, but they're choosing to get their welding certification."

Learning opportunities

beyond high school

Just as integral, Forrester said, is providing training beyond high school. Although she said Mat-Su is becoming recognized around the state for its efforts in providing vo-tech education to students -- an effort further cemented by the recent passage of an $18.6 million bond to develop a career center -- the education needs to continue beyond high school.

"We're pretty well recognized as the leader [for K-12 vocational education], but when you're looking at training programs for adults, we really don't have much," Forrester said. Although some training is provided at Mat-Su College and a few other locations in the Valley, the classes are still relatively limited -- both in offering and, in some cases, in class size. Other vocational education offerings are only available in Anchorage or Seward, which for some isn't a feasible alternative. "A lot of the residents can't drive to Anchorage to get in those programs -- especially the ones who need it the most," Forrester said. "I think we really have the capacity to grow there."

That's where the pilot program comes in, Forrester said. Not only is it geared to determine what would be needed to allow other user groups to use the facilities at the new welding lab, it may well help determine whether other vocational labs can be used by the public as well, such as Palmer High's automotive shop, where students are pursuing Automotive Service Excellence certifications.

"We're going into this very slowly," Forrester said. "We want to see what is needed … 'Go slow so you can run' is the advisory board's approach."

More and more, Forrester said, schools are going beyond K-12 education, extending their range into post-secondary education. Currently, through the welding program offered to juniors and seniors across the school district, students can pay $15 per credit to get 16 college credits from the course -- and have American Welding Society certification in Welding I and Welding II, placing them in an entry-level welding position. That idea, Forrester said, can be expanded to include those interested in returning education as well. With the information gleaned from the pilot welding program, other course offerings could be available in the future.

It's largely due to the motivation of the welding advisory board, she said, that this was the program to kick-start the idea.

"They were on a roll and ready to go," Forrester said.

The duties of the participants of the pilot program aren't yet over -- their final class will be held Monday, and all of them will be asked how the program can be improved for future participants. Ewing said the advisory committee plans to meet after the program wraps up and evaluate what took place. From there, they hope to schedule some six-week classes that are open to the community by the beginning of the year.

Forrester said the group has worked up potential cost estimates of the classes, with an eye toward running the program at-cost. After paying an instructor, paying for materials, adding in a payment for building usage, a night janitor and equipment maintenance, she said, the total cost for a six-week course ends up to be about $300.

From there, the ideas expand, Forrester said. Open lab time may be offered to members of the community, they could offer intensive workshop training during the summer months, or the facility could be available for instructors to hone their skills.

"There's all kinds of ways to work with it," Forrester said. "I really think there's a lot of people who want to learn a little bit, and sometime they might want to learn more … We've kind of looked at this being sort of a cooperative extension service -- what kind of training do you need, and how can we provide it? It should be inclusive, rather than exclusive."

What does the future hold?

There are still several questions to be answered before the district can throw open its doors to non-district instructors or offer the welding lab to groups such as the University of Alaska Anchorage as a facility where students can test their knowledge. Some of the questions, such as how use of the facility could affect regular classroom instruction and what types of information need to be made available -- such as valve shut-offs and access routes -- to future instructors, have been gleaned from the pilot class. They're questions that may not take a lot of deliberation to solve. Others, however, won't be solved so quickly.

"There are issues that are just a lot larger than our own that have to be worked out within the district," Ewing said.

Things like how the program is funded, what entity takes class registration money and where the money is held to ensure it will return to fund the education program are all part of that discussion, Ewing said, and it's one that can lean toward politics. The community schools program, both Ewing and Forrester said, are natural organizations to operate the adult vocational programs out of, but the program's funding has historically been nibbled away at for years, with complete cuts in some communities and cuts threatened in others.

Forrester said she's confident they'll find a way to provide what the community demands, and be able to make the most of the opportunities provided by investing in state-of-the-art facilities such as the welding lab.

"There are other places across the nation that are doing this and doing it well," Forrester said. "But it takes a lot of conversation."

And motivation -- something both Forrester and the members of the advisory board seem to have in spades.