Greensburg Salem High School senior Allyssa Mattes wants to go to a technical school and work in a machine shop after graduation.
Mattes was among those who told about 15 teachers from several school districts about the career-preparation programs at Central Westmoreland Career and Technology Center this week.
As the educators visited the vo-tech this week, Mattes was busy working with fellow Greensburg Salem seniors Chris Adams and Raymond Moffit on a robot that the school’s robotics club would use.
Mattes said she would advise the teachers participating in the Teacher in the Workforce program to encourage girls to go into robotics engineering and manufacturing.
The Westmoreland-Fayette Workforce Investment Board’s Teacher in the Workforce program started in October. It’s designed to make public school teachers and administrators familiar with the needs of the workplace. Teachers tour workplaces and career and technology centers, job-shadow with employers and interact with employers to help strengthen their understanding of what students need in order to be prepared to enter the working world.
The program has attracted 37 educators in the county from 11 of the county’s 17 public school districts. It operates in conjunction with 15 businesses involved in manufacturing, health care, technology, business services and the trades.
“The engagement and support of educators helps us (workforce development board) to engage, educate and empower young people on relevant workforce skills and career opportunities that exist right here in their backyard,” said Janet Ward, workforce board executive director.
The program is funded by $250,000 in grants from a private foundation.
On Thursday, teachers toured Stellar Precision Components Ltd., a Jeannette machine shop, and Penn Township Ambulance, where director Ed Grant gave them an overview of careers in emergency medical services.
To Jackie Polakovsky, a Southmoreland eighth grade science teacher, the instruction programs she saw “prepare students for for a career for the rest of their life.”
“The program gives the teachers a better understanding of what we do here and what careers are like in Westmoreland County,” said Alexander Novickoff, assistant director at the Central Westmoreland Career and Technology Center, which has about 1,200 students from nine school districts. “The programs are industry-related and career-related.”
From the perspective of Southwestern Pennsylvania BotsIQ, a partner with the Workforce Investment Board , it’s a big opportunity for the teachers to see what is available for their students in the vocations, said Michel Conklin, executive director of BotsIQ, which is a manufacturing workforce development program of the Pittsburgh Chapter National Tooling & Machining Foundation.
“It gives them an idea of what skills are needed to enter the workforce and to help them (teachers) connect their instruction to the real world,” Conklin said.
Mattes said she wants educators to encourage more young girls to enter the manufacturing programs.
“It’s a really great program, and I don’t regret it all,” Mattes said about pursuing a career in which about 17% of the workforce in primary metals manufacturing is female, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Power line instructor Todd Bartlow said teaching students the skills to be a power line worker is a path to a “high-paying job” where there is a “huge demand” for qualified workers by utilities such as Greensburg-based West Penn Power and Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Light Co.
Polakovsky suggested that the career and technology center should have an eighth grade component to introduce students to what the center has to offer.
“They can prepare the students where they can have a job and pay for college,” said Polakovsky, who wants her administration to allow ninth grade students to attend the career and technology center like other school districts.
John Kerlicker, a teacher in Jeannette Junior High School, said he wants to convey to his students the enthusiasm he saw among students attending the career and technology center.
“It’s kind of what they need,” Kerlicker said. “I see why they love it here.”
Joe Napsha is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Joe by email at jnapsha@triblive.com or via Twitter .
