Dr. Jorgensen's Highland Highlights - March 25, 2019
March 26, 2019
I was a Marketing/Business Instructor during my teaching days prior to becoming an administrator. I have always had a passion for Career and Technical Education (CTE). In fact, my doctoral thesis was on the administration of Vocational Educational Programs. I carried that passion with me as an administrator and have been active in the development of CTE programs and linking those programs to post-secondary education ever since.
When I was Superintendent at Southeast Webster-Grand, we were the first High Schools That Work programs in the state of Iowa working with the Southern Regional Education Board through a Comprehensive School Reform grant. This led to being one of the first schools in the state of Iowa to offer dual-credit classes with Iowa Central Community College. When I retired in 2015, my experience and work with CTE programs is what attracted the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) to hire me as a part-time consultant. The SREB has a nationwide network of schools that are a part of an initiative to raise the standards in secondary education with an emphasis on blending high quality vocational education with upper level core content.
I am a big believer in the 25/50/25 theory of education. I believe that we do a great job of addressing the top 25% of our student’s academic needs, the students that will go on and complete a 4 year program of study. About 21% of our students nationwide will complete a 4 year degree program by the time they are 26 years old. That figure is closer to 28% in the state of Iowa. Most people think the number of college graduates is a much larger figure than it really is. Overall schools also address the needs of the 25% of our students with special needs with specialize programs and addressing specific needs. Several post-secondary or programming opportunities were created to offer unique job training for these students. The middle 50% of our students are the ones some would argue, are not always been served properly in the past. These are the students that needs skills beyond high school but are not likely to complete a four year program. This 50% provides the majority of skilled labor in our country and need the workplace skills to compete for a high skill, high wage jobs. Some students within this 50% choose the armed services, but the majority need training and skill development, accomplished in a vocational school or community college. This is the biggest job opportunity group in our nation currently.
One of the first actions as Superintendent at Washington was to schedule a meeting with the President of Kirkwood to discuss the possible construction of a regional center in Washington County. Within two years that became a reality. The regional center is a great way to provide both academic and CTE programming to students. It is a real asset to the local school districts. It also allows local districts to focus on areas to enhance or enrich what is already available. The Mid Prairie School District invested money on the construction of an industrial kitchen to use for culinary arts programs. I had a chance to tour this facility and it is amazing. When I took over at Highland, we also changed our traditional Family & Consumer Science program into more of a culinary arts program. We have a great program but can only aspire to the outstanding facilities and instruction that is taking place to the west.
The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for Highland is the Aerospace Engineering courses taught. First of their kind in the state of Iowa and created by Auburn University. We are currently in the preliminary stages of having conversations with Kirkwood and with the University of Iowa, College of Engineering to see if we can articulate into those programs. We also are collaborating with Rockwell Collins. It is our desire to be a regional center for this particular program, partners with neighboring school districts. I do not believe local school districts should try to do these things on their own and should collaborate, which is the whole concept of the local community college regional centers. The Mid Prairie Culinary Arts program and the Highland Aerospace Engineering programs are both examples of providing pathways that are not available through the Kirkwood Regional Center at the local school district. The goal is to provide for 100% of all students success after high school. These are examples of small rural districts doing just that.
