Thank you Jack, it's been quite a project. You mentioned self-checkout machines and those who have to maintain them. You are so right. It has amazed me how many different industries are relying more and more on the skill sets we are teaching students in Automated Manufacturing and Electronics. Our big employment sector is Manufacturing, but we are getting requests from Agriculture, Mining, Oil & Gas, Utilities, and others. Our students really do make the world turn, and there are plenty of high paying local opportunities for them to take advantage of. Love it!

I'll dive right into your questions. First, industry has been involved from the very beginning, and supported the project in key ways like writing letters of support for grants, hiring our students, donating equipment, providing opportunity for industry tours (which they have had to get special permission from corporate since most of the are under 18), and reviewing curriculum.

Our pipeline of high school students went from averaging 10 per year to around 120. This has created a new problem where employers who have traditionally tried to hire people with 5 years or more of experience have not changed hiring criteria, despite the fact that they can't find anyone with that much experience. HR rules that come down from corporate and other internal obstacles make it difficult sometimes for our students to get their foot in the door despite the fact that the employers are the ones asking for them. Future goals of our project include piloting and standardizing internship opportunities so that each company doesn't have reinvent the wheel, they just have to commit to accepting a certain number per year. We were making good progress in this direction, then Covid 19 hit and hiring freezes have put a hold on our efforts there. 

Employers in our area do not require licensure for Automated Manufacturing and Electronics Techs. 

We are considered a rural area in general. One of the really cool things about our project is that we can  duplicate it pretty much anywhere. For example Rich High School which is out in the middle of nowhere and averages a student body of about 120 students per year, has been able to connect with us every morning. They have the equipment they need and we've had as many as 1/4 or the student body enrolled because there's not as many elective opportunities in those schools. We are seeing similar results with our sister school who adopted our model. They serve a school in Wendover who's population is primarily Hispanic and Native American (also a small school). When we did our visit there, the classroom was full and the students were doing very well. 

The biggest reason this works is because we are able to show students opportunity to make themselves more valuable for local industry, and we have numerous success stories. 

High school girls are tough. Our numbers here have increased each year, but we're still talking about a very small percentage of the whole. When we talk to our employers, in many cases more than half of their workforce are women, but they don't start looking at manufacturing as an option until well after they have graduated from high school. The result is that they tend to accept jobs that require little education are repeatable, and therefore susceptible to replacement by automated systems. We have tried for years to try and help Jr High and High School girls recognize this with limited success. It's just not part of their life plan at that age. 

Covid-19 shut down all of the high schools, which essentially shut us down as well. We had a big discussion about whether or not to let students check equipment out and take it home. We left it up to our facilitators to decide at each location. The result has been that I have grading, supporting, and giving feedback to several high school and adult students completely online each day, but they are going to run out of things they can do from home soon. Luckily we are going to be able to allow students back in to do labs on a scheduled basis starting on the 18th. 

When I started working at the school 6 years ago, there were two full time and and two part time employees. We now have have 8 full time instructors and another 8 facilitators we pay for an hour of their day each morning during the school year. Our overall 900 hour certificate completion numbers went from about 9 per year to somewhere between 60 and 80 depending on the school year. 

Thanks Shellie, we're trying hard to make sure our local economy is thriving, and our students are aware of and take advantage of local opportunity!

Thanks Shellie! It really is a shame that more students, teachers, counselors, and parents still think that it is "career OR college". . . or that it is either "technical college OR university". Stackable credential pathways that connect high schools, technical colleges, and universities free students from losing out on any one pathway. Now they get to do them all simultaneously while saving time and money! Thank you for your comment!

All of our instructors have worked in industry and are simply excellent. Advisory committees are also key, and having the right advisory members on the committee is critical. Getting the right people on the committee is critical. They have to be people who have the ability to help get students hired, give meaningful feedback, and we try and include as many as we can. This requires going on site at their facilities and talking to them. We meet with advisory committees twice a year, but we also schedule meetings at individual plants where we try to bring in the managers and HR people who are working with our students and get direct feedback from them.  

We have not used Perkin V money to reach into middle school. We have a wonderful stackable credential program in partnership with Utah State University and others. Our certificates not only provide a way for students to get their foot in the door in most industries at very high rates of pay, but they also apply 30 credits toward an Associate of Applied Science at USU. Students can then stack a Bachelor of Science in Technology Systems on top of the AAS degree, and our advanced certificate can apply another 15 credits toward that. On top of this, most of our employers offer tuition reimbursement which is the equivalent of a full ride scholarship. So if you think about it, this path not only offers educational opportunity, but it also helps students work their way through school which gives them on the job experience (how many students graduating with a associate and bachelor degrees do you know who finish with three to four years of on the job experience?) they will finish with zero debt, and they will be done on the education side much faster than their peers. This is opportunity we explain to students... the smart ones (and I'm not necessarily talking about the straight A ones) see the opportunity and take advantage of it. This is why we have students who spend 2 to 3 years in high school coming in an hour early every day, spending their summers at our school, and doing everything they can to complete as much of their certificate while they're still in high school. It's really fantastic. 

Hi Sam,

Thanks for you comment. We have not thought about Perkins V money to reach middle school students. In order to be able to reach down to elementary and middle school students we have housed the local maker space at our campus. This has increased awareness but I am very interested in your Perkins V funding as well as your CEE STEM project. I will definitely check it out! And yes, I/we would love to chat and learn from your project. 

Hi Dr. Roschelle - Big fan of your research.

In order to get everyone to work together, I think that you are correct that shared measures, a hub organization, and leadership have all played their part.

With respect to shared measures, the Utah's Governor's Office of Economic Development put together some funding opportunities which would were only awarded to groups of industry and educational institutions. This incentivized everyone to work together. Beyond money, there was a very strong economic argument as well as an argument for student futures (academic and career). It was an easy sell for anyone to see why this program was win win for everyone. 

Bridgerland served as the "hub organization" as the technical college's in Utah as part of their mission simultaneously reach into high schools, universities, and industry in our area. 

Matt Fuller's "leadership" was also very important. Matt is a mover and shaker and was very ingenious in aligning the incentives of the grant for all constituents. For example, one key incentive that has fostered the dramatic growth of the AM STEM program is that high school teachers can earn an extra stipend for their time worked on the project. We couldn't emphasize more how critical high school teacher involvement has been. Matt also made sure that the program was initially set up as a zero hour time prior to the start of the school day. This settled issues relating to CTE funding that could have potentially caused problems between the technical college and local school districts. 

I would also add that the initial success of the program has bread more success. Momentum has opened up other areas for collaboration that didn't exist early across the state or region. 

Thank you for your comments,

Mason