AISD officials hear glowing report on tech program
January 10, 2007
Dr. Virginia Mosier's career and technology education report to the Abilene school board Monday had reams of statistics. But perhaps none more arresting than this: ''99.6 percent retention rate (achieved by) students involved in a coherent sequence of career and technology education.'' Career and technology education ''keeps them in school. We're really proud of that,'' Mosier said. A coherent sequence is a series of related courses that can help a student gain vocational certification and enter the workforce after high school - or continue building on the sequence into higher education. Those options - plus preparing students for military careers - are the goal of the Abilene Independent School District's career technology program. AISD officials are looking at where to house the program and are working to develop classes relevant, interesting and challenging to students. Abilene and Cooper high schools offer 108 courses in seven different program areas, as diverse as pharmacy technology, animal science, accounting, engineering design and development, electrical trades and criminal investigations. Superintendent David Polnick said he hopes decisions on which courses to offer can be made this spring so that planning for the new career and technology campus can go forward.
A key planning chore will be an architectural study of the current Lincoln Middle School campus to see if any renovations are necessary to fit the program, Polnick said. Lincoln, like Franklin Middle School, is scheduled to close at the end of this school year. Polnick cautioned that the Lincoln campus has not been chosen as the site of the career and technology campus. The district has $2 million in bond proceeds, approved by voters in 2004, earmarked to create the career technology campus. If costs exceed $2 million, he said, the community may be asked to contribute to the project. The career technology campus opening is probably 18 months to 2 1/2 years away, Polnick said. But the opening of a school for one part of career education, the Holland Medical High School, is probably just a year away, AISD officials said. ''We hope to open that next year at this time,'' Mosier said.
