Fresh from a four-year stint on the local school board, Kenny Smith is exploring the possibility of opening a career and technical charter high school.
For years, the apprenticeship coordinator of the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and former Hamilton County Board of Education chairman has preached the gospel of vocational education in public schools, making little headway.
Now, after an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Hamilton County Commission, Smith says he's been approached by a group of people interested in starting a career and technical charter high school on the campus of Chattanooga State Community College.
Along with his team -- whose members, for now, want to remain anonymous, he said -- Smith is looking into the feasibility and requirements of starting such a school. He also plans to meet with school board members individually to see whether they would support the idea.
"This may be a quicker way to get a stand-alone [high school]," he said. "I think it's past time; a lot of students are falling through the cracks."
Smith's idea comes after years of declining emphasis on career and technical education in Hamilton County Schools. He and his supporters believe that with manufacturing companies such as Volkswagen, Alstom and Wacker coming to the area, now is the time to improve the area's vocational education.
And Chattanooga State President Jim Catanzaro has just the place for it.
He has visions of building the career and tech school on his campus, adjacent to the current technology center.
Some students would take only high school classes, but others would have access to some of the college's equipment and could do college-level work, he said. In Catanzaro's mind, attending the school would be a perfect steppingstone for admission into Chattanooga State.
A career and tech high school wouldn't be a substitute for college, he said.
"Almost every occupation now that is a technology-based occupation requires a higher level of math, of computer capability, a higher level of problem solving than generally would have been true a decade ago, or a generation ago," he said. "That's just simply because in the world of industry, what's required to work in a [Volkswagen] plant is significantly more demanding than what was required in a GM plant 20 years ago."
Smith, who holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said he still believes graduates of a career and technical high school can be successful without a college degree, but that it's hard for many in the community to come to terms with that.
After attending Chattanooga State for one year, Smith's own son, Casey, told his family he wanted to quit school and go straight into an electrical apprenticeship program.
"Here I've been preaching [vocational education] for 10 years, and I'm thinking, 'My own boy doesn't want to go to college?'"
Though it was initially a hard pill for Smith to swallow, he says his son has been a successful electrician for 10 years, and wouldn't have it any other way.
"I can understand parents who have a strong pull for college ... but what kind of fool would I be to force [my son] to do something else, when he's doing what he wants to do?"
Current landscape
After several years of declining enrollment, Chattanooga City Schools' Kirkman Technical High School closed in 1991 and was sold. The money was used to start career academies at local high schools and make Sequoyah High School the local vocational option.
Then in 2005, Sequoyah became a standard high school and Hamilton County Schools officials did away altogether with the option of earning a vocational diploma. Three years later, the Tennessee Board of Education made the single-path diploma a requirement for high school students across the state.
Sequoyah Principal Todd Jackson argues that despite the declining emphasis on vocational education, Hamilton County already has a stand-alone career and technical high school: his.
In addition to fulfilling academic requirements, Jackson's 401 students -- about 40 percent of whom come from outside the school zone -- choose one of 12 vocational paths such as welding, diesel mechanics, cosmetology or early childhood education.
Still, Jackson does see the need for more practical, hands-on training.
"There's more need [for a stand-alone vocational school] than we can meet ourselves," he said. "I think we're going to continue and be just fine. I think another school might offer other [training] that might be good for the work force."
Tim Fowler, who heads up East Ridge High School's construction academy, agrees. While his school's program is generally considered to be one of the more successful career academies in Hamilton County, he still wishes there were more support.
A stand-alone career and tech school would ensure everyone in the building was focused on a single goal: preparing students for the work force.
As it is now, he feels his program has to compete too much with other electives offered at the school.
"In Hamilton County, students have to have eight elective [credits], and sometimes you get spread thin on how many students you get," he said. "[At a stand-alone school] you're there for a sole purpose, and you can accomplish that purpose."
Some students in Fowler's Electrical II class say they just are glad to be out of a classroom, able to walk around and do something with their hands.
But for others, it's a training ground for their future.
"Construction is something that just gets along with me; it's something I get," said East Ridge senior Ty Hanks, 17, who has taken nearly every class the construction academy offers.
Hanks plans to attend college for construction management and engineering and said programs like East Ridge's give students who don't have a natural proclivity for academics another option.
"[Students] can get a good job instead of flipping burgers the rest of their lives," he said.
Other students, like Cameron Workman, whose father is a plumber, know that a college education just isn't a good fit.
"I could care less about going to college," he said. "I enjoy doing this kind of stuff, and it comes to me real easy. I want to stick with this and find an apprenticeship program."
Changing the stigma
Administrators will say they support the idea of career and technical education, Fowler says, but deep down, he wonders about their sincerity.
Hamilton County's vocational education lags behind that of other districts around the state, he said, and he believes it's an attitude that comes from the top down.
When he takes his students to regional and national skills competitions, he sees administrators from other school systems but none from Hamilton County. That speaks volumes, he said.
"When you see school administrators there, that's strong."
He believes administrators still see vocational education as good options only for students who aren't academically inclined.
"People don't like the stigma of vocation itself. In the past, a lot of your lower-performing students ended up there," he said.
But Superintendent Jim Scales says the emphasis on academics isn't a snub to career and tech. It's simply that the skills needed to enter the work force today are the same that students need to get into college.
"Do we need to pay more attention to career and tech education?" Scales said. "Absolutely. But we need to do a feasibility study ... to make sure we've got a population interested enough in taking those classes."
Tonight at 6 p.m. on Channel 3: Employers discuss whether graduates of Hamilton County schools are ready for the work force.
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