August 24, 2006
Many years ago the State of Ohio decided that Ohio communities should start to provide Career Technical Education (vocational schools) for High School students. The main goals were to link communities together and form a district, with a new building and various programs for these students. Students would attend their regular school during part of the day and than attend the vocational school the other part of the day. This venture would be something that communities would vote on and to be funded through a levy.
Passing
a school levy can sometimes be like putting out a fire with gas, you can throw
gas on a fire for hours on hours and all it does is make it bigger and
hotter…it doesn’t put the fire out but the problem is still there. Needless to say the citizens in the Grand
Lake Area voted on levy after levy and they would not pass to build a vocational
school like other area communities had done.
The state of Ohio says you must provide vocational education for your
students. So what happens next, Celina
Schools Superintendent at the time Ralph Stelzer knows that something has to be
done and he begins to work with the Coldwater and St. Marys school
administrations to form a unique form of vocational education called the
Tri-Star Career Compact. How is it
different? It bases programs at the
three locations in Celina, Coldwater and St. Marys and utilizes structures
already in place. In later years additions at the three main sites would also
be built to handle these programs and needs.
The big advantage to this concept is you use the facilities you have and
staff you already have in place.
Teachers are part of Tri-Star, but also remain as part of their present
school systems. It took the state
sometime to decide how they liked this concept and finally it was approved and
the rest is history. This is just a
quick look back at how Tri-Star developed and to let you know we should all be
thankful that Ralph Stelzer along with others came up with this solution. I think the main success of Tri-Star is because kids get
to keep there home school roots, where the regional Joint Vocational School's
do not have this option.
Is Career Technical Education working at Tri-Star? Yes, I personally know of many students over the past years that without this type of education would have fallen through the cracks and most likely would have never finished High School. Many of these students while attending Tri-Star have been able to be placed into jobs because of these programs and now continue to work as productive citizens. The key to this success in the past is that these programs all adapt to what we are seeing in vocational education, from the need to welders to the need for experienced IT computer people.
Is Tri-Star perfect? No way, but what form of any education is these days. Let’s give credit to the State of Ohio; first, mandating vocational education has been a plus for Ohio students. I now live in Illinois, they do not require Career Technical Education in the public school systems. Local factories are having trouble finding young people to work at any level, I talked to one professional who said that having Career Technical Education in Illinois would be the best thing in helping us to find folks to fill our jobs.
I do know that many issues have come to the public about the operation of Tri-Star, which is probably good because there are many more positive things happening in these programs than negatives. The students that comprise the classrooms of Tri-Star are in very capable hands of the staff of Tri-Star. That is why the Mercer County Outlook supports Tim Buschur and his staff at Tri-Star. They have demonstrated in the past that they are developing young people for the vocational needs of the Grand Lake area and will continue to in the future. I am confident that Tri-Star will remain a key part of this community.