Early career awareness is one of the most important components of workforce excellence, the majority of discussion groups decided at a forum Friday.
The groups, which consisted of students, teachers, area school district administrators, community leaders and professionals, also listed character education, better use of career aptitude tests and parent involvement as important components in educating students about careers.
The second Armstrong County Forum for Workforce Excellence at Lenape Technical School highlighted actions the forum committee has taken since the first meeting in March 2007.
Nineteen recommendations made at the first meeting were discussed by those attending the meeting. The groups picked the recommendations they felt were the most important and talked about ways to rework others.
Members of a forum committee are working to incorporate some of the recommendations in the upcoming school year and have made progress on others.
Ford City junior Tyler Riggle said his group decided that career awareness at a young age is important. He said his group would like to see more students engaged in discussions with administration and employers about how to be better prepared.
"Communication is the key and we need to be more aware of that in our schools," he said.
Kittanning junior Nathan Turco said his group would like to see character education at a young age to instill a good work ethic in students. His group said revamping the school dress code might be a good idea to prepare students for the workforce, he said.
A few representatives from the 19 discussion groups emphasized parental involvment to help students to choose and prepare for careers.
Some students who shared their group's decisions said career aptitude tests given in school could be used better. The tests could be given in high school, the students said, as their interests change. The tests are normally given first in middle school.
Forum committee member and county commissioner Patty Kirkpatrick agreed that students should be more involved in the process of incorporating the various recommendations into schools.
"The insight that they gave to us as adults is very, very critical," she said.
The committee's goal yesterday was to get different perspectives and opinions on how to connect employers and educators, said David English, executive director of the Armstrong Educational Trust.
"We've really made some headway," he said.
The forum committee has made progress on some of the recommendations including:
• Creating a forum for selected students enrolled at all of the school districts in the county. The students will be used as advocates and mentors for increased contact between employers and educators.
• Setting up roundtable discussions several times a year to continue communication.
• Student involvement in the creation of a logo for the workforce forum.
