Home Special Report Career center celebrates 50 years

Career center celebrates 50 years

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XENIA — In the mid-1960s, Superintendent Eugene Kavanagh and Director Wallace Gossett fostered a dream that would allow high school students from all corners of Greene County to have access to career training that would benefit them for a lifetime. Their dream lives on 50 years later as Greene County Career Center continues to expand programming to meet the needs of current and future students and the region’s workforce.

Throughout five decades of outstanding instruction, the center has provided career-technical and academic instruction at the main campus and Agricultural Research Center with an eye on preparing high school juniors and seniors for careers and college. Beginning in the fall of 2017 the number of career-technical programs will rise to 18 with the addition of Sports and Exercise Science and multi-discipline Career X.

The new programs expand a menu of offerings that includes auto collision repair, automotive technology, carpentry, cosmetology, criminal justice, culinary arts, digital media, electrical wiring and motor controls, equine science, food and hospitality, health science, information technology, natural resource technology, power equipment mechanics, veterinary science and welding.

The ability to provide instruction in partnership with the county school districts remains a strength for Greene County Career Center. These partnerships have expanded to feature some exciting additions next school year.

Xenia will be introducing an engineering pathway for grades six through 12 while expanding high school Project Lead the Way courses to include engineering design and aerospace engineering. The Career Center will also begin facilitating the information technology classes at the high school while also updating the long-running agriculture classes taught there.

At Cedarville High School, agricultural education will be enhanced to mechanical principals and a full-time instructor has been added after years of the position sharing the day with Greeneview High School.

Beavercreek City Schools has been enthusiastic about expanding its partnership with the Career Center and the announcement for what is coming for the 2017-18 school year has caused a great deal of excitement. A new pathway has been created in grades seven through 12 beginning at both Coy and Ankeney Middle Schools. The Project Lead the Way curriculum will include app design and development for seventh and eighth graders and automation and robotics plus flight and space for eighth graders.

STEM-related instruction has always been a foundation of career-technical education and those offerings will continue to expand especially in the areas of aerospace and aviation, information technology and manufacturing. This current school year saw the addition of engineering technology at Yellow Springs High School.

Other satellite programming offered at the various schools include marketing, agriculture business and science, family and consumer science, engineering and biotechnology. Project Search is a post-high school program that places students in co-op positions at Soin Medical Center.

Each career-technical program at Greene County Career Center convenes an advisory board twice each year that consists of industry professionals.

Additional announcements are forthcoming as the Greene County Career Center embarks on its next 50 years of outstanding instruction. Celebrations in honor of the 50th anniversary are being planned for September of 2017.

Story courtesy of the Greene County Career Center.