Greg Dausch was using one hand to talk on his cellphone and the other to steer his shopping cart.
It was the Monday morning equivalent of a grocery run for the director of the Monongalia County Technical Education Center.
“Just making sure we’re stocked up on the basics,” he said.
Dausch was at an automotive supply store, buying oil, filters and the like in preparation for fall.
In many ways, it’s already autumn at MTEC, the director said.
That’s because fall registration for adult learners launches at 1 p.m. Thursday, he said.
Visit mtec.mono.k12.wv.us view course offerings and to sign up online. For additional assistance you may also call the center at 304-291-9240.
“We’ll help you work through it,” he said.
Helping graduates work their way into a job is the goal of the center.
MTEC completers can make a cherry pie or operate a plasma cutter, while running a restaurant or writing the code for the latest game to download on your smartphone.
They tear into automobile engines and tear down dilapidated structures, to build new ones in their place.
And, Dausch said, they get hired. The center boasts a high job-placement rate.
MTEC graduates, in fact, have been known to go right from the job site to their graduation ceremony, he said.
“It’s nice to know that they have work waiting on them.”
Work, as it pertains to community technical education, is the focus of blue ribbon task force on job development which held its first meeting last week in Charleston.
The task force was assembled by executive order of Gov. Jim Justice, and its statewide goal is to do what MTEC does on the regional level.
Much like a welder working on a complex structure, the idea is to meld educational offerings with job opportunities.
Less than 50% of West Virginia residents go on to college after high school, said Sarah Tucker, who works two jobs as chancellor of both state Community and Technical College System and Higher Education Policy Commission.
Tucker also serves on the task force.
By 2030, she said, 60% of state residents will need a post-secondary education to compete in the job market.
Monongalia County’s public education administrators already have that in mind.
The district is calling for the construction of new high school devoted solely to science, technology, engineering and math pursuits.
In turn, the county tech center would be reconfigured to a STEM academy for middle-schoolers.
An initial funding request to begin that work was denied in April by the state School Building Authority, which doles out dollars for new schools construction and other infrastructure improvements.
Mon Schools had asked for $1.6 million to add three additional classrooms, with a combined space of more than 7,500 square feet, for the enhanced study of robotics, pre-engineering and e-gaming.
Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said STEM is still the star here.
He said the district will seek alternate dollars.
“We aren’t going to abandon it,” he said. “It’s still our priority project for 2021.”
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