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From left: Jeffrey Dillishaw, Josiah Dudek, Zack Schwartzott, and Luis Romero. Photo by Brendan Bannon.
From left: Jeffrey Dillishaw, Josiah Dudek, Zack Schwartzott, and Luis Romero. Photo by Brendan Bannon.

BPS Training Students for the Jobs of Tomorrow

by / Jan. 25, 2016 9pm EST

Deep in the bowels of Buffalo’s McKinley High School, students in John Serra’s electrical class set up breaker boxes in mock rooms comprised of wood studs, poke around on the internet and tinker with a set of solar panels they have installed on a fake roof.

Zack Schwartzott, Josiah Dudek, Luis Romero, and Jeffrey Dillashaw—all seniors—listen intently to Serra as he explains how to use equipment to read how much energy the panels are creating, plugging wires into the metal frame of the sleek, black squares they attached to the faux roof earlier in the school year.

Away from the panels, Dudek said he chose to enter the program, in part, because he wasn’t sure how he would pay for college and a career as an electrician. Working in the emerging solar industry would possibly give him the means to pay tuition, should he want to continue going to school.

“Even if after high school you don’t go to college and you end up going into the union or you end up going into an apprenticeship, you get paid as you do it,” Dudek said.

His fellow seniors were ambivalent on whether they wanted to go on to college, but all said they like the flexibility that having a basic knowledge of electrical work affords them.


McKinley High School teacher John Serra with students. Photo: Brendan Bannon. 

Romero said many kids go to college because they believe it is what they are supposed to do, even if it is not something that truly interests them.

“People maybe that aren’t really interested in college or don’t really like doing some of the things you do in college, they can do something with their hands,” Romero said. “Something that, you know, excites them more.”

Opportunities for trade workers and those qualified for manufacturing jobs in the Buffalo region are so plentiful that employers are having a hard time finding people to fill the positions. In a city with notoriously high and persistent rates of poverty, this would seemingly present a good opportunity to begin to address those issues. But the gulf between the people who most need the jobs and the training and skills they need to get that work is something that local officials have struggled to bridge for years.

For its part the school district has been working with the state education department to adjust the career and technical education training to meet the changing demands of the region’s employers.

With the growing demand for health care workers on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus has come the three medical career programs at the Math, Science, and Technology Preparatory School. With the rebound of the city’s manufacturing sector there is the a number of advanced manufacturing programs run in conjunction SUNY Alfred at Burgard High School. Serra’s electric class at McKinley is one of a number of options offered to students seeking training in green construction techniques, a reaction to levels of trades work available at levels that hasn’t been seen in decades.

And now with SolarCity set to open the largest solar panel factory in North America in South Buffalo this year—officials expect nearly 3,000 jobs to be created, directly and indirectly, by the plant—the district is set to start a program in partnership with Erie Community College and the solar panel maker that would see students graduate with a certificate that would qualify them for what will be one of the most common positions at the company.

Katherine Heinle, the director of the district’s career and technical education program, said that her department works closely with the employers and state education to get students ready for the jobs that are coming down the pipeline, something that is particularly important with the job growth the region is experiencing.

“We’re going to be actually training kids for whatever SolarCity thinks their openings are going to be,” Heinle said.

While some of the newer programs will not immediately address the skills gap, down the road these programs should work towards filling the jobs needs with district students, Heinle said.

“There were kids already in our construction program that are hitting the job market and getting jobs and apprenticeships,” Heinle said. “The kids that are in these newer programs won’t hit the job market for six years.”

With 7,000 kids enrolled in career and technical education courses and another 4,000 in “programs of study,” which also allow students to earn certifications, the school district is preparing the next wave of Buffalo workers and giving them a leg up if they want to go straight into the job market instead of attending college, Heinle said.

“I think our biggest challenge in technical education at the high school level is now finding qualified teachers to teach these new and emerging fields,” she said.


Serra, Romero, and Dillishaw. Photo: Brendan Bannon.

David Rust is the executive director of Say Yes Buffalo, a nonprofit philanthropic group that provides scholarships to partner schools for any graduate of the city district, as well as support services designed to help them reach those goals.

He said that while his organization’s core mission is to increase graduation rates for city students at the high school and collegiate levels, they also recognize the importance of career and technical education, and have been working with the district to provide supports for those programs.

We think it’s critical to support those (programs),” Rust said.

In a city where half the children grow up in poverty and where the graduation rate just surpassed 60 percent for the first time in a decade, it’s imperative for educators to support students in every possible avenue toward productive, fulfilling work, he said.

“The revitalization of this city needs to be for everyone,” Rust said. “You can’t have a city full of poor people that can’t get jobs. What does the medical campus or SolarCity mean to someone who can’t access it? What does 716 mean to somebody who can’t go have a meal there? We’ve got a chance to get this right for the first time in our city’s history and it’s a special opportunity and one that we have to take full advantage of.”

Back in his classroom John Serra, who has been teaching career and technical education in the Buffalo Public Schools for 30 years, said that the revitalization of the city, with so many construction and renovation projects very visible to the students, is resonating even with high schoolers.

“It’s increased students’ awareness of the need for trades people,” Serra said.

Serra said he has also seen a shift in the perception of career and technical education programs. When he first started there was the thought that those classes were only for kids who were academically challenged. Now educators and advocates have come around to a point of view that supports the idea that going into the trades can be desirable and a better choice for some students over college, regardless of their academic abilities.

“There’s no doubt about, over the past several years, even in the media, they at least address the fact that not everybody’s going to college and these trades jobs can create great careers for students,” Serra said. “Not just jobs, but a career for their whole life. They can have a family, be productive citizens in the community and that’s what we’re really trying to do.”

Standing around the solar panels near the end of class the seniors talk about their city and what they’ve seen happening over the last few years. They all agree that, on the whole, the city is better off than it was when they were younger.

All but Jeffrey Dillashaw, who hopes to return to his native Texas after graduating, say they plan to stay in Buffalo.

Josiah Dudek said he believes that the course he has set by participating in the electrical program will help him be part of the “New Buffalo”—a city on the rise after decades of decline—that is so often referred to by city, county and state officials.

“Now Buffalo’s creeping back up and I see that,” Dudek said. “I want to be a part of it.”


The article appears courtesy of a content-sharing agreement with City and State.

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