Vocational department performs at high level
The school system’s vocational department has bested the state average in every category on the recently released Perkins Report Card, vocational director Jerry Stubblefield has announced.
“We have outstanding facilities, good equipment and instructional materials, but the only reason we fared so well was because of our fantastic teachers who are dedicated to their subject areas and to children,” Stubblefield said.
Now in its second year, the Perkins Report Card was created by the state to add further accountability to local vocational education departments. This was done to comply with standards required by the federal government, which funds a large portion of vocational education through the Carl Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act.
This year’s report card results were taken from data collected from 140 seniors during the 2000-2001 school year who were enrolled either in the tech-prep path or dual path.
In the academic achievement category of the report card, the local vocational department posted a score of 91.9 percent, meaning this percentage of vocational students graduated from high school with a regular education diploma. This number was almost 3 percent above the state average and almost 7.5 percent above the previous year’s score.
The vocational/technical skill attainment category showed 100 percent of students achieved the desired competencies in one of the seven subject areas. This number was almost 7 percent above the state average.
A score of 129.78 percent was posted in the category of post-secondary placement in either the workplace, the military or higher education. The number is over 100 percent because some students were counted twice (for example, if they went to work and to school). This figure is 40 percent above the state average and 50 percent above last year’s score.
Also graded was non-traditional recruitment, or the percentage of females in traditionally male-dominated classes (like auto body) and vice versa. The local department’s score was 26.4 percent, which was about one-half a percent over the state average and over 7 percent above last year’s score. The federal guideline is currently around 25 percent and increases one-half a percent every year.
In a related category, the local department showed 32.7 percent of its non-traditional recruits were retained, or completed their career cluster (three credits in a sequential subject and one related credit). This percentage is about 5.5 percent over the state’s average and 3 percent over last year’s score.
While pleased with the scores Stubblefield noted the need to continuously strive for improvement. To help make this a reality, he said, vocational teachers will be attending a variety of conferences and in-services this summer.