Educators taking wider view of creating workforce - #lakewoodnews

More than a few bills in the 10-bill Ready to Work package making its way though the Colorado Legislature this session focus on an obvious component of workforce development: education.Similarly, school districts and local colleges continue to seek more ways to work toward developing tomorrow's employees through promoting easier access to college, career and technical education.Speaking last month on figures showing that most Adams County schools are lagging behind the state average in college-bound students, Steve Saunders, communications director for Westminster Public Schools, said his district has been trying to strengthen workforce- and career-centered training as a response to those low higher education numbers.For instance, he said, the district is upping the ante on vocational programs that were once more robust, before the focus shifted to promoting higher education."We are -- in addition to trying to increase college attendance -- expanding our career and technical education program," Saunders said. "Which is great for kids who aren't going to college but want careers in, say, plumbing or carpentry, because as you know there's a real demand right now for that."I gather there was a time ... we had a pretty robust program," he added. "That kind of fell by the wayside as everybody was saying 'College, college, college.' And now there's a realization."Be it college or career and technical training, Saunders said the real challenge is presenting available resources to a generation of students not necessarily thinking about higher education, or from families where college or even technical training was never believed to be an option."Me, I grew up thinking 'Well, yes, I'm going to go to college. I don't know which one but I'm going to go,'" Saunders said. "But some of our kids, they've never really thought of that as a real option."And so that's a focus of the district's, too. For instance, Saunders said events like a Tuition Fair sponsored by Congressman Ed Perlmutter in February at Westminster High School, along with open houses held by the district, help provide more accessibility to programs and resources.Breaking the moldFront Range Community College President Andy Dorsey knows all about working with students unfamiliar with higher education. He guesses about half the students who enroll each year at Front Range are the first in their family to seek a college degree."A majority of our students don't have a lot of parental background with college," he said.Dorsey said programs like Concurrent Enrollment, where students can take a course for high school and college credit at the same time, help keep that number up by building confidence in students who might not have the same support system at home as those whose family expects them to go to college."We think if we can help kids see while they're in high school that they can master college-level work they'll be more likely to try college," he said.Front Range also partners with Adams 12 Five Star and Mapleton school districts on a program called Gateway to College, which seeks students who have either dropped out of high school or are on the verge of doing so, and brings them onto a college campus, where they can finish their high school degree and -- hopefully -- transition onto the next level."We're graduating roughly 50 kids a year from that program, and probably about two-thirds of them are going on to college," Dorsey said.Building better, more educated workersThere's a bright side to low college-bound numbers. Dorsey said it was that data which led about a decade ago to the development of the Adams County Education Consortium, promoting "career and college readiness for the 21st century.""Front Range was one of the original co-founders along with Adams 50, Adams 12 (school districts) and Adams County Economic Development," he said. "I think that organization has done a great job of trying to connect businesses with the school districts."And the reason I think that's so important, the more students can get exposure to business and to careers, the more likely they are to have a direction and a focus they can use to make a choice about college," Dorsey added. "Getting businesses and schools and community colleges connected can help us make sure we're getting students the right education they need to be successful."

from Lakewood Sentinel - Latest Stories http://lakewoodsentinel.com/stories/Educators-taking-wider-view-of-creating-workforce,211261