General Advisory Council Minutes
Everett Public Schools Educational Service Center, Room C-3
December 7, 2006
10:00 - 11:30pm
Present: Sue Ambler, Nick Alvanos, John Monroe, Murray Reid, Angel Lopez, Kimi Shigetani, Carl Fender, Becky Ballbach, Lauren Handley, Diane Storm recorder.
Welcome/Introductions
The advisory members introduced themselves and place of employment and retirement.
Murray Reid was identified as the Community Chairperson for current 06-07 school year.
Program Expansion and Program Offerings – General Advisory Council. Areas of feedback from council members were: CTE where are we going? Program offerings, program expansion, addressing the growth in manufacturing, other growth areas, who else should be making key decisions for CTE programs in Everett Public schools?
Carl started the discussion to look at existing CTE programs and to evaluate classes
that already exists. The group was in agreement that there were no offerings of manufacturing classes, and was concerned that students did not have the opportunity to explore all areas of manufacturing. “Not offering manufacturing is a crisis,” said Sue Ambler. “We’re not going to be able to provide our companies employees,” said John Monroe. Snohomish County is a manufacturing community and programs in our schools should reflect that and offer local employers graduates who can enter into the manufacturing field.
The committee agreed that the additional course offerings look good and we should focus on clearly identifying how programs connect to employment and focus on events to make the community, students and parents aware of CTE class offerings.
How should Everett Public Schools address the growth in manufacturing in the county? The advisory group agreed that this is a manufacturing region. Let people know that manufacturing isn’t a dead in job. It was suggested that CTE look at how to align some of our current programs to feed into manufacturing areas or offer a course that is an introduction to manufacturing giving students the opportunity to see each area of work in a large manufacturing company. From shipping, project management, to inspecting, etc. It will also be important to involve the community in course development.
Murray Reid stated that soft skills should be incorporated with instruction as well as working together as a team. Other skills that are needed in the workplace are time management, technical skills and critical thinking.
What are other growth areas? Areas of growth within the job market are health care, aerospace and construction.
Who else should be at the table to help Everett Public Schools make these key decisions? A task force of manufacturing representatives should help develop a manufacturing program.
Next General Advisory Meeting: Thursday, January 25, 2007, Admin Center, C-3