By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Hillyard Technical Center has grown from a school district vo-tech school to something much more important to the economic growth of the community.
St. Joseph School Superintendent Gabe Edgar says Hillyard has been attracting more and more students.
“A think a lot of that is due to some of the philosophical shifts that we’ve had in the school system itself,” Edgar says during his visit to the KFEQ Hotline. “Hillyard was one of those things when I first got here that was way, way underutilized. So, we’ve kind of changed the branding and changed the marketing strategy toward that population.”
Edgar says the Hillyard Advisory Board has members of the St. Joseph manufacturing community on it, directing instruction more toward the workforce needs of the greater St. Joseph area.
Edgar says Hillyard aims now to address the workforce needs of the St. Joseph region.
“Before we were just training students to train students,” Edgar says. “We weren’t training students to go to the workforce or go to Gray Manufacturing or Altec or wherever that may be. We’ve become more specific and we’re really trying to engage that student population at a young age.”
Edgar adds that Hillyard will work effortlessly with the new Convergent Technology Alliance Center on the Missouri Western State University campus. CTAC will work with local manufacturers to train students for the high skill manufacturing jobs in demand today. It is a joint venture between Missouri Western and North Central Missouri College of Trenton.
“So, a student can go to Hillyard, they can get their apprenticeship and they can go into the workforce,” Edgar explains. “Then there’s the next step. You can go to Hillyard, you can get your certificate, then you go to North Central for two years and you go into the workforce. And then we have a path also where you go to Hillyard, you go to North Central, finish your four-year degree at Missouri Western. So, it’s all seamless and it works together.”
The new CTAC will open soon.
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