The need for skilled workers continues
Officials at the Ashland County-West Holmes Career Center said there’s still a huge gap between the number of jobs available at area businesses and industries and the people with the skills needed to fill them.
Officials at the Ashland County-West Holmes Career Center said there’s still a huge gap between the number of jobs available at area businesses and industries and the people with the skills needed to fill them. They also told the school’s board of education at its regular meeting on Thursday, Aug. 16 that the gap remains even though enrollment in career center programs just prior to the start of the 2018-19 school year will top 400 for the second straight year.
Principal Rod Cheyney, who will become interim superintendent on Sept. 1, said officials are looking at great numbers with 436 junior and senior students signed up for career center programs including senior-only programs and college-now programs held at North Central State College and Ashland University. That compares with 413 students signed up last year and 359 at the start of the 2009-10 school year.
Figures for students who have signed up for satellite programs at West Holmes, Loudonville and Ashland high schools will be available at the September board meeting.
In general, numbers have gone up for programs that have been in place while figures for new programs are good so far.
“The numbers now are always higher than on the first day of school because there always are a number of students who change their minds for whatever reason,” outgoing Superintendent Mike Parry said. “Our data shows we’ve retained an average of 90 percent [of the students who initially sign up] over the last 10 years.”
Later in the meeting, Ashland City School District representative Rick Ewing, who is vice president for facilities at Ashland University, said the enrollment figures are encouraging. He said both existing employers and new companies coming to the area have told him there are not enough people with skilled trades to do the work.
“We’ve had a plumber’s position open for five weeks, and we’ve had three qualified for that position,” Ewing said. “The education we provide here, the work ethic, the skill sets that we train, there’s just not enough of it out there, and to have 436 potential people coming out of this school, let’s keep that up.”
Adult education director Melisa Carr said apprenticeships appear to be the way in the future to change the culture and keep people at companies. “They sign on, you invest in them and we can start a pre-apprenticeship here with our juniors and seniors,” she said.
Carr told the board 30 people attended a recent session at the career center on apprenticeships. She said Oberlin College has agreed to do a plumbing apprenticeship, and Centor in Berlin will send an employee for an electrical apprenticeship.
Parry said the lack of apprenticeships is an institutional/educational question. “It’s getting business and industry to buy into the fact that an apprenticeship is a good thing, and it’s not just union-driven anymore,” he explained. “It’s a larger, more important piece to keep trade, skilled labor alive.”
The career center board heard some good news on the industrial side. Treasurer Julie Smith reviewed an enterprise zone agreement between the City of Ashland and JT and Sons LLC for an expansion at Harris Welding on Cottage Street. The project will create three new jobs, retain 23 current jobs, create $105,000 of new annual payroll and is expected to be complete in June 2019.
Before the meeting several career center board members toured the building with school officials to look at the results of summer maintenance projects. Projects included the creation of a work area for the IT department, enclosing a lobby in the child care area to reduce outside noise, adding a mixing room for the auto body spray area, reorganizing the graphics laboratory and its computer graphic design area, and removing an outdoor loading ramp that had been used by the Yesteryear Machinery Club for its annual tractor shows.