FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE WORKPLACE

Lafourche Parish public schools may soon offer a centralized vocational program to high school students, according to school board spokesman Floyd Benoit.

Following a request by Charlotte Bollinger, a representative of the Lafourche Friends Foundation, at last week’s school board meeting, the district is exploring the option of implementing a work-training program similar to the one in Jefferson Parish.

A vocational training program, Bollinger told the board, would better prepare students that are not headed to college for today’s workforce.

“It’s critically important for the school board to promote vocational learning. I feel that the school system has done a poor job of focusing on the 80 percent of students that will not be college graduates, but who will have to rely on vocational training,” she said.

Bollinger, whose family operates Bollinger Shipyard, is not blaming the parish school board for the problem. The entire nation is facing the issue of poor vocational training, she said.

The shipbuilding company was the state’s first to approve an apprenticeship program to ensure a trained workforce in the future.

Bollinger said it was a great idea in theory; however, the school-to-work program isn’t being promoted at the high school level. “It would be a great idea for a child to have an after-school job, that could possibly turn into a career,” she explained.

Because the local market is untrained, Bollinger Shipyard looks to foreign nationals for about one-third of its workforce. “We have to look elsewhere because the local people are not qualified for the jobs, and that’s true for most of the manufactures in the Lafourche Parish area,” she said.

Bollinger said she fears students that opt to pursue a vocation rather than attend college after high school graduation are negatively stigmatized. Years ago, the option to learn a trade was more accepted because students wanted to strike out and make money, she explained.

“That’s the way it should be because society needs about 20 percent of the community to be in that college educated group. The other 65 percent n 13 of which will fall by the wayside n needs to be in the workforce. Therefore something has to change in the high school vocational technology programs,” she said.

That’s not to say Bollinger and the Lafourche Friends Foundation are not supportive of colleges. In fact, Bollinger urged school board members to attend the foundation’s annual gala next month, which will feature Louisiana State University Chancellor Sean O’Keefe.

In other business, the school board authorized Superintendent Jo Ann Matthews to transfer teachers, principals and staff to low performing schools in an attempt to improve test scores.

Benoit said past transfers were usually made at an employee’s request. The new provision will take precedence over such requests, he said.

The change was prompted by the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires individual test scores at public schools continue to show improvement.

Photo courtesy of Bollinger Shipyards, Inc.