The Woonsocket Area Career & Technical Center (WACTC) has been awarded PrintED accreditation in five areas of its graphic communication/arts and printing program.
Only the second Rhode Island school to achieve this status – William Davies Career & Technical High School in Lincoln is accredited in two areas of PrintED – educators say that the program will be the new standard for the state.
"It’s the first step for career and technical education in Rhode Island," Linda A. Jzyk, education specialist, high school reform at the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said. "We hope that the other schools with these types of programs will follow suit."
The program has an enrollment of about 30 students, and there is a waiting list.
The accreditation is based on the school’s adherence to a national set of standards established by the Graphic Arts Education and Research Foundation (GAERF). WACTC applied for five – introduction to graphic communications, press operations, digital imaging preparation, image assembly and platemaking and finishing and binding – of eight possible areas of accreditation and received a perfect score in each, according to Bill Webb, the program’s instructor.
The benefits of the accreditation extend well beyond recognition for the school, Webb said, to potential employers. Graduates of certified PrintEd programs have the equivalent of six months on the job and can move from state to state and retain national credentials; because accreditation standards are determined with input from industry, employers know that skills developed in a certified program are compatible with the field.
Webb, who spent 25 years in the printing industry, most recently as production manager at E.A. Johnson in East Providence, said it is important that the adjoining rooms that make up his classroom be set up like a working print shop. With that arrangement each student can develop an area of expertise and collaborate on projects. The department has worked on a number of small-scale printing jobs for the school and the Woonsocket School District, including calendars, report cards, hall passes, business cards, school handbooks and brochures.
Jzyk said this type of operation, plus the school’s accreditation, "move the program into a different realm of practice. It’s not just showing students."
Webb said it was important to him that his students take responsibility for various aspects of the three-month accreditation process.
"What’s nice is these are students, kids who stayed on task and stayed focused for months to accomplish a goal that they had no idea what it would mean to them," he said.
For Temitayo Adenoda, who just graduated from WACTC and will be a communications major at Rhode Island College in the fall, that meant "a lot of photocopying." Adenoda was in charge of documenting the required elements – taking pictures to show the required safety labeling in the classroom and making copies of the printing program’s curriculum standards, for example – for the school’s accreditation application.
"That was a big project for this class," said Bethany Mann, a rising senior who plans to study graphic design in college.
Adenoda said that even though she’s already graduated, "it means a lot to know that we actually got it."
