College nets $225K for Southern Wayne training programs

The grant will be used to renovate classroom and laboratory space to expand workforce training in welding, equipment repair and safety, said Tara Humphries, WCC public information officer. The grant funds will pay for equipment, personnel and supplies.

Southern Wayne High School students will be able to benefit from the additions during the school day. In the evenings and on the weekends, WCC will use the area to provide short-term training to adults, and a bilingual instructor for Spanish-speaking students will be provided, Humphries said.

By placing new equipment inside the school, WCC and Southern Wayne High will be able to enhance the existing construction, diesel and agriculture trade programs, Foucht said.

The programs will provide training to help high school students as well as area residents who need better access to training and, eventually, employment.

The goal of the project is to increase the number of high school students completing career pathways and the number of adults completing training and earning industry credentials or micro-credentials, Humphries said. Instructors certified by the National Coalition of Certification Centers will provide standardized training on specific equipment and students will test through the organization to earn the industry-recognized certificates.

“WCC is grateful to the Golden LEAF Board for its selection of our project with Southern Wayne High School for funding through its Community-Based Grants Initiative,” said Patricia Pfeiffer, WCC president.

“With these funds, we will be able to develop a space for workforce training that will serve both the high school students and adult learners from minority and underserved populations that live in southern Wayne County. This collaborative project will allow optimum use of space, equipment, and time with high school students learning there during the day and the college holding short-term training classes at night and on weekends.”

This program is expected to start in the 2023-2024 school year.

Over the years, WCC leaders noticed areas of poverty as well as a growing Latino community in the southern part of the county, Foucht said.

The biggest challenge for residents is transportation, especially families that have one vehicle, he said.

“So if you only have one car and you (have) to do other things with your family, how are you going to be able to get some of that training?” he said.

“Yeah (the Goldsboro Wayne Transportation Authority bus) can go down there and run from Mount Olive but they still have to be able to get over to Mount Olive and there’s only certain times they can do so.”

When the opportunity came to apply for funding, WCC leaders thought that if there was a facility closer to the southern part of the county, it might be a good way to attract people who can’t get to the main WCC campus, he said.

The purpose of the program is to attract people who aren’t located close to WCC, Foucht said.

People who live in the southern area of the county will benefit the most from the program, even though it is open to everyone, he said.

The program is designed to allow public schools to enhance their Career Technical Education, CTE, he said.

“We have a large CTE presence at Southern Wayne,” said Karen Rogers, Southern Wayne High School principal.

Southern Wayne High has 1,065 students and at least 50% of the student population is enrolled in trade-training classes, Rogers said.

“My hope is the influence of the program is going to help kids stay in school,” she said. “We are really working towards advertising how important these courses are for a job-ready life.”

According to Public School Review, Southern Wayne’s graduation rate is 78%, which is lower than the state graduation rate of 86%.

The dropout rate is higher among Latino males at the school, she said.

Nearly 37% of students are of Latino descent and school administrators are looking for ways to connect and help the community, Rogers said.

“We have a social worker (Yesenia Hernandez) who speaks Spanish, so she helps us a lot in getting into those homes and talking to parents,” she said.

Along with a school social worker, the school also has three guidance counselors, a school nurse, and mental health providers, she said.

“For us the big picture is knowing our students and knowing what’s going on in their lives and for them to trust us enough to share those things with us so that we can get them the help they need,” Rogers said.

Foucht said that Kevin Smith, a former Southern Wayne High principal, has worked to get students to school by getting them interested in a trade program so they’ll also go to the rest of their classes.

Smith, the WCPS director of secondary education program development and athletics, said the heating, ventilation and air conditioning, HVAC, program started when he was principal.

From its inception, the purpose of the trade program was to look at the current job market and create programs that fit the interest of students, Smith said.

Before the HVAC program began, there was a vacancy in the CTE curriculum and school officials talked with the CTE director, Beverly Boltinhouse, to determine which program could fill the curriculum vacancy and offer trade training that would have value to students and the job market, he said.

Some of the grant funding through the Golden Leaf Foundation will go toward the HVAC program, and needed HVAC equipment has been ordered, Foucht said.

Four welding booths will also be added to the Southern Wayne training area.

The Golden LEAF Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1999 to receive a portion of North Carolina’s funding from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with cigarette manufacturers.

For more than 20 years, the foundation has funded 2,077 projects totaling $1.2 billion supporting the mission of advancing economic opportunity in North Carolina’s rural, tobacco-dependent, and economically distressed communities through leadership in grant making, collaboration, innovation, and stewardship as an independent and perpetual foundation.

The Golden LEAF Foundation has funded 13 Community-Based Grants Initiative projects totaling $10.2 million focused on workforce preparedness and job creation and economic investment. The foundation has provided lasting impact by helping create 67,000 jobs, more than $720 million in new payrolls, and more than 95,000 workers trained or retrained for higher wages.