Learning outside the box Part 2: Career and Technology

By Carol Stuart

For many of us (the older ones I'm afraid), "vocational education" calls to mind classes where students who wanted an easy grade learned to make furniture in "shop" if they were males or to cook in "home ec" if they were females. Today those classes are more coeducational and are called things like Construction Technology and Advanced Nutrition and Foods, while Jerry Morgan, the man at the Livingston Parish School Board who coordinates those classes, also has under his purview classes like Computer Networking, Advanced Child Development, Accounting and Certified Nursing Assistant.

"I'm always going back to training because technology is constantly changing our lives. I never had to check my e-mail every morning. Nurses never had to wear gloves to draw blood. Things are constantly changing."

Morgan prefers to refer to himself as the Career and Tech Ed Coordinator rather than Vocational Education Coordinator, because the title better reflects the wider usefulness and broader appeal of the classes in his department.

"These courses are part of the school curriculum and can be selected by any student," Morgan said. Also, everyone needs to go to work, whether they go to college or not and many of these skills will come in handy in a post-college career as well.

"But the fact is," Morgan went on, "80 percent of the American work force do not have a B.S. or a B.A. They usually have an associate's degree or technical training. And they are the backbone of America -- people with kids and a home and two-week vacations."

A little more than 5,000 high school students across Livingston Parish are currently enrolled in Vo-Tech classes that will provide them with a head-start on post-graduation training for a solid career. Also, due to an articulation agreement signed recently by W. Wayne Meaux, Vice Chancellor/ Provost of the Louisiana Technical College-Greater Capital Area District II, students completing some of these classes with a grade of C or higher will not only get high school credit toward graduation but will also earn credit toward a certification or associate's degree at one of their seven schools.

In the Computer Repair and Networking area are Business Computer Applications I and II, taught at all high schools; Website Development, taught at several high schools; and Computer Architecture and Computer Networking, taught at Live Oak High School, Walker High School, Denham Springs High School and Albany High School.

In the Family and Consumer Science area are Child Development and Advanced Child Development, Advanced Nutrition and Foods and Family Life Education and Parenthood Education, all taught at all high schools except Holden. In the Allied Health Area are First Responder, Certified Nursing Assistant and Medical Terminology, all taught at all high schools.

In the Drafting area are Basic and Advanced Technical Drafting at WHS, DSHS and French Settlement High School; and Architectural Drafting at Denham Springs High School.

Also, taught in all high schools are, in the Business Administration area, Word Processing and Accounting I; Welding I and II; and Construction Technology.

This fall, when the Livingston Parish Literacy and Technology Center is open, additional and more advanced classes will be held there, with 325 students expected to attend. In the Computer area, Cabling will be offered immediately to train students to string any kind of copper wiring for communication, Morgan said, Making them eligible to be hired by Cox or Charter. Then, in the fall of 2006, industry standard CISCO I and CISCO II will be added to the curriculum to teach the engineering portion of the course.

Allied Health students will have very exciting prospects with a greatly expanded curriculum in the fall offered in the Literacy and Technology Center: Introduction to Pharmacy Technician students will need just one hour for two semesters and then do an internship of 500 hours and pass a state test to be nationally certified to work.

Emergency Medical Technician Basic is the first an only course that can be taken at the high school level that counts toward certification as an EMT, but it requires First Responder or Medical Terminology as a prerequisite.

"Livingston Parish is one of the largest users of Acadian Ambulance services," Morgan said, "so it has a major vested interest in helping us. They have said that they will take any graduate with the EMT course, train them for seven months and hire them at $35,000 a year. They can even work offshore or on helicopters for an even higher salary."

The third Allied Health Class to be offered at the Center will be Patient Care Technician, which already has a pilot program with students from Live Oak High School. In cooperation with three hospitals, Summit, North Oaks and Lallie Kemp, those Patient Care students will earn individual certification for doing an EKG and will work toward national certification as phlebotomists (blood drawers).

"They have to do 100 successful sticks to be certified," Morgan said, "and then they can go out and get a job right out of high school that pays about $19,000 a year."

Most exciting in the health field will be a Practical Nursing curriculum which students can take for the next full year, which, if they complete it satisfactorily, will put them more than half way to becoming a Licensed Practical Nurse. Additional classes made available for that course of study at the Center will be Anatomy & Physiology, Nutrition, Infection Control, Practical Nursing Concepts, Medical Math, Physical Assessment and Geriatric Nursing/Application of Nursing Skills.

"When they get done in the spring of '06, they will just have to go to technical college in the summer and the fall semester, and then they can go to work and get $35,000 a year," Morgan said.

Entrepreneurship is recommended to the LPN students, but is not required. That class, taught by Beth Thompson is useful in many careers. Fully funded by Kaufman with $340,000, after the parish made wise use of a earlier grants of $30,000 in 2003 and $100,000 in 2004. In 2003, we were second only to Disney in utilizing "Making a Job" money. Kaufmann officers said they "can't believe that we do what we say." In getting a reference for other grants, it is one of the feathers in the cap of Livingston Parish.

Another feather in that cap, perhaps a full headdress will be the Automotive Technology courses offered in a new 9,500 square foot automotive center in the Center, where students can take Auto Tech I (brakes, steering and suspension) and Auto Tech II (electrical engine performance.

"This is our own entity," Morgan said -- a state of the art program, equalled by none. We consulted many folks about this for recommendations and we put in all of it. There are four bays with huge lifts and underground drainage for front end alignment, power steering, brakes and engine performance. We also have a classroom, a lab, a tool room and a locker room. Brian Harris doesn't have what we have."

Students who want to get into one of these programs, should talk to their school guidance counselors as soon as possible. Some prerequisites for later LTC-credited courses can be taken as early as the freshman year. Although many schedules have already been set for the fall, Morgan said, there is still time to make changes.

"We're working on getting articulation agreements for some of our classes to get credit at colleges and universities," Morgan said. "And many of these classes are not just for career education, but can be basic building blocks for life."