By Sarah Nagem
snagem@salisburypost.com
Local schools and Rowan-Cabarrus Community College need to work together to prepare students for the area’s changing economy, leaders of both institutions said.
Members of the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education and the RCCC Board of Trustees met Monday to talk about how they can best meet educational needs.
Rowan-Salisbury school leaders rarely meet formally with RCCC representatives.
But leaders of both institutions said they have important business that will require collaboration ó preparing local residents for science jobs.
That realization comes in the wake of a research report that shows many local residents lack the necessary training to work at the N.C. Research Campus.
“Everyone here is concerned about education,” said Ray Paradowski, chairman of the RCCC board of trustees.
A report by Market Street Services Inc. in Atlanta, which was completed earlier this year, analyzes the skill sets and educational training of Rowan and Cabarrus residents.
The results show that many local people don’t make the grade in terms of transitioning from industrial work to biotechnology fields.
The chances of high school graduates who do not have college degrees getting a job at the research campus are “extremely remote,” said Tim Foley, academic vice president for RCCC.
A two-year degree can increase those chances, he said.
That’s partly where a collaboration between the public schools and the community college could come into play.
Before students even start thinking about post-high school plans, school leaders can emphasize the importance of science, college leaders said.
But first, they said, school leaders need to be informed about what students need in order to pursue careers in biotechnology.
Beginning next summer, RCCC staff will help train Rowan-Salisbury school counselors to better advise students about preparing for biotechnology careers at the research campus.
“We are going to need to educate ourselves,” said Jeanie Moore, vice president of continuing education at RCCC.
The school system can’t expect to train each student for immediate job placement at the Research Campus, said Dr. Jim Emerson, chairman of the Rowan-Salisbury school board.
Instead, he said, school leaders can instill in students the fundamentals that will make them good employees: a strong work ethic, a sense of responsibility.
School leaders can also encourage students to pursue a two-year degree, college leaders said.
So far, it seems many jobs at the research campus will be available for two-year degree holders, they said.
Universities will likely hire lab technicians to assist the masters- and doctorate-degree holders.
And those tech positions “will be pretty good-paying jobs, compared to cooking fries at the hamburger joints,” Paradowski said.
Of course, before high school teachers and principals can convince students to enroll in community college, they have to convince them to graduate high school.
Despite the changing economic climate, school leaders said, many people still think they can find work without a high school diploma.
“We really have to work to change that mentality,” Rowan-Salisbury Superintendent Dr. Judy Grissom said.
People with minimal educations had more options in the hey day of the mills, said Salisbury Mayor Susan Kluttz, who is a member of the RCCC board.
When Pillowtex closed five years ago, Kluttz said, many residents called on Salisbury leaders for help.
“It broke our hearts that they didn’t know there wasn’t anything we could do, that the economy was changing,” she said.
But it is changing, school leaders agreed, and they need to steer more students to college.
It’s a work in progress.
“I think before you can get the airplane up in the air, you have to get it off the ground,” Paradowski said.
“I think that we’re probably fueling that airplane right now.”
Dr. Carol Spalding, president of RCCC, called the 50-minute roundtable-style discussion a “strategic conversation.”
Grissom said she hopes Monday’s meeting was the start of more conversations between the school system and RCCC.