By Dennis Quick
Quick Notes

During a recent North Charleston City Council meeting, Councilwoman Dorothy Williams declared the city needs another vocational school to go along with the existing Garrett Academy of Technology.

The problem is that Garrett accepts only top-notch students and that those less academically gifted have nowhere to go, Williams said.

Garrett offers programs in, among a number of other trades, metal fabrication, carpentry, electronics, health sciences and culinary arts. With Lowcountry manufacturers starving for welders, homebuyers looking for new homes to be built, electronic devices needing repair or invention, and restaurants seeking talented chefs, Garrett is a crucial training ground for the kind of skilled labor sought by Lowcountry industries.

I agree with Councilwoman Williams. Kids not at the top of the class academically still should be given access to a trade school. However, once enrolled in that school, they must be required to get their academic skills up to snuff if they want to stay in that school. And the school must do whatever it can—employ special tutors, create special classes, whatever it takes—to help those kids improve their academic skills. The kids don’t need to become rocket scientists, although it would be wonderful if they turned out that way. They need to be literate.

If our work force is to compete in this fierce global economy, literacy is an absolute necessity.

It should go without saying that kids who can’t read, write or count shouldn’t graduate from middle school, much less high school. However, too many schools in South Carolina and across the nation routinely send diploma-armed illiterates into the work force.

This is inexcusable, it’s deplorable and it’s been driving employers crazy, particularly those in manufacturing. During the Southeastern WorkKeys Conference held several weeks ago at the North Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center, human resources personnel being introduced to WorkKeys, a job-training program, pointed out that many of the folks they hire are high school graduates who can’t read. That’s how sad the employment pool is.

Schools continuing to do this are a disservice and a disgrace to any community and should be closed.

Enough ranting. Back to trade schools. Yes, we need more of them, but not just in North Charleston. We need them throughout the tri-county area.

And plans are underway to create them. Not new brick-and-mortar buildings, but trade programs within existing high schools.

S.C.’s Education and Economic Development Act, designed to steer high school students toward careers, places vocational education front and center. The act, which must be fully implemented in the state’s schools by July 1, 2011, offers course concentrations in manufacturing; hospitality and tourism; architecture and construction; science, technology, engineering and math; and 12 other fields. Graduates will have a number of post-secondary education choices, including apprenticeships.

As part of the EEDA initiative, Charleston County School District is creating four “career academies:” the School of Arts and Humanities; the School of Health, Human and Public Services; the School of Business Information Systems; and the School of Engineering, Industrial and Manufacturing Technologies. This last should bring a smile to Lowcountry manufacturers.

Berkeley County School District’s career and technical education staff includes instructors in fields ranging from automotive technology to culinary arts to building instruction, with some 20 other fields in between. And Dorchester School District Two’s school-to-work program tries to match students to careers of their interest and aptitude.

So trade school and career-oriented programs are already in place, or soon will be.

Nevertheless, we could go a step further and build brick-and-mortar trade schools for the industry clusters—aerospace, automotive, creative industries, bioscience and advanced security—the AngelouEconomics Report recommends that we develop.

Maybe businesses within those clusters could help pay for those schools. It certainly would be a worthwhile investment.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

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