Stronger business ties eyed for career centers

NEED BASED: Students at Warwick Area Career and Tech Center work on a building on Tollgate Road. Technical centers across the state are working on aligning education with future employment needs. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
NEED BASED: Students at Warwick Area Career and Tech Center work on a building on Tollgate Road. Technical centers across the state are working on aligning education with future employment needs. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Reform is coming to 10 career and tech centers in Rhode Island following recent changes to state law designed to modernize the programs and better connect them to local job opportunities. Educators say they are already collaborating more with the business community, though they want to see local control maintained.
Cranston Superintendent Judith Lundsten said she is comfortable with the way lawmakers and a 26-member business coalition preserved local management of the centers in state statute, although statewide management may still be a future consideration by a new board of trustees established to oversee the programs. Two of the 10 centers are run by the state; the rest are run by local school districts.
“In order for the [Cranston] center to be a really top-notch program, we need to have partnerships with the business community,” she said. “We need to understand their needs and the types of workers they need to be successful. [The coalition] made some valid points that we don’t want to duplicate services, but we’re uniquely positioned to meet the need of our students and I don’t want us to lose that consistency.”
Gerry Auth, director of Cranston’s career and tech center, said recent meetings with the business coalition facilitated by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council focused on programming strengths and weaknesses. Cranston has 11 distinct programs, one of which is construction, so Auth has met with General Dynamics Electric Boat to adapt curriculum to meet future employment needs.
“We’re exploring different options and introducing new material to fit workforce demand,” Auth said.
Collaboration and changes to center programming have been made possible with an amendment to state law, passed quietly last summer without outgoing Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee’s signature. The law charges 15 trustees with modernizing and coordinating programs at all 10 career and tech centers. A new board of trustees replaces a defunct State Advisory Council on Vocational Education within the R.I. Department of Education. The board must develop a biannual plan that business organizers say could further address management of the centers while enhancing private-sector participation in programming.
The revamped law also sets up an independent, nonprofit foundation, or trust, modeled on a similar educational nonprofit in Worcester, Mass., that can raise funding and help establish new internships and apprenticeships.
“We have a lot of programs in the state doing good things,” said Deborah A. Gist, commissioner of elementary and secondary education for the R.I. Department of Education. “What we want to do is bring everybody up to a higher level of performance, then fill in the gaps.”
RIDE runs two centers – The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center in Providence and the William M. Davies Jr. Career & Technical High School, which was named a 2013 National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.
Locally run centers include the Providence Career and Technical Academy and regional centers in East Providence, Woonsocket, Coventry, Chariho (in Richmond), Warwick, Cranston and Newport.
Providing curricula and training to bridge skills gaps in information technology, advanced manufacturing and health care and other sectors will be addressed, Gist said. Improving student workforce credentials, including the awarding of recognized certifications, post-secondary education credits for colleges or technical schools, or advanced standing in apprenticeship programs also is a goal, she said.
All career and tech programs already go through an approval process with RIDE, said Susan Votto, chairperson of the R.I. Association of Career and Technical Education Directors and director of the Chariho center. “We’ve been working with the business coalition, [and have] open communication, so everyone’s on the same page,” she said. “That’s why we’ve been having meetings, to make sure everyone is comfortable with the decisions being made.”
Originally, the impetus for these changes came from business leaders’ desire to see statewide management of all programs, said Bill McCourt, executive director of the Rhode Island Manufacturing Association.
That initially concerned educators and union leaders, so Rep. Joseph M. McNamara, D-Warwick, a legislative sponsor, and the coalition revised the language so it allows state management of the eight locally run career and tech centers only if initiated and supported by superintendents and school boards or committees.
John C. Simmons, RIPEC’s executive director, said that the biannual plan could include recommendations about governance for the career and tech-education centers, but that that would take at least a year. Gov.-elect Gina Raimondo will appoint trustees in January.
“Is the model to provide those services – the current model – the best model?” he asked. “If it’s found we should regionalize services, then the question is how?”
Any process to change the way centers are organized and run would involve recommendations to RIDE, as well as legislative changes that would have to pass both houses and face approval by the governor, he said. At this point, Simmons added, it is unclear how trustees will approach the writing of that plan.
“It’s really hard to know what this is going to look like, because it’s so brand new,” said Barry Ricci, superintendent of schools in the Chariho Regional School District in Richmond. “If the [law] encourages greater involvement from the business community, that would be a huge plus, and we would embrace that.”
In September, the state transferred ownership of the Warwick career and tech center back to the city, said Superintendent Richard D’Agostino, because local educators consider it to be an integral part of the school district. “We’re taking a two-pronged approach: that [students] will be certified in their area of trade, but also, they’ll have credits to get into college,” he said. “The center is part of the Warwick school district now. The business community can certainly provide us with guidance, but we know the needs of our kids and the curriculum. We will follow RIDE’s guidance, but I don’t think we need anybody running it for us.”
Ricci says he has about $200,000 in so-called career and tech “categorical” funding that may be applied to renovate a culinary kitchen at Chariho, but the work, which has been put out to bid, is expected to cost about half a million dollars.
“We’d love to have the resources [to fully fund that work],” he said. “There are still tremendous needs, because many career and tech programs are very expensive to run and the equipment needs are pretty substantial.”
The Rhode Island chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, which represents about 6,000 teachers and 4,000 other educational staff and health workers, successfully obtained revisions to the amendment to ensure that its members’ rights to jobs, benefits and collective bargaining agreements remain intact, said James Parisi, a field representative with the association.
“We’re onboard with it to promote and enhance career tech education, but whether or not it works all depends on what this new board does,” Parisi said.
Simmons said the nonprofit trust will be empowered to “get businesses and employers to be much more directly involved in the career and tech program in Rhode Island.”
For example, centers have business-advisory groups for individual programs, but it may be possible to establish broader advisory groups for entire business sectors, such as manufacturing, he said. •

No posts to display