FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
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Welcome to Voices, a national award-winning podcast brought to you by the Seneca Valley School District.
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Jeff Krakoff: Today we are with Regina Hiler, executive director of Butler County Area Vocational Technical School. Thanks for joining us.
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Regina Hiler: Thank you for having me.
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Jeff Krakoff: So this is part of our series on workforce development. Can you first just provide an overview of what the Butler County VO Tech is all about and what does it offer for students at Seneca Valley?
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Regina Hiler: Sure. We have 16 career and technical education programs here, which are all approved approved programs through the Department of Education. Every program has to be a high priority occupation synched to and also there has to be jobs available in the workforce and also in articulation to higher education. So some examples of some of the programs that we have, we have 16 we have any anything from cosmetology to sports medicine to auto technology. We have building construction, culinary arts, health, assistant protective services, and the list goes on, 16 programs all together.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So, you know, Vo-tech is very much about hands on experience, learning your craft. How does the facility go about doing that for students?
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Regina Hiler: Well, everything the students learn through theory, through the actual theory part of their day, they apply with practical application. So think of being in an English class, which I used to take teach English. I love English. Um, and the students have to afterwards write a poem. After they learn a lesson, we'll hear they're learning a lesson on how to build a house, literally. And they look at blueprints, they look at every part of what they need to do to plan that. And then they actually create a home, like a mini home or a floor of an actual house and use their designs to expand their mind. And and they have to make sure that they're following the proper procedure that their teachers give them. But they have some time for creativity, too.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay. How's that work? Can you give me an example of.
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Regina Hiler: Yeah, for example, each student and let's say build a construction. They have an area that's called a trainer. And it's not all the time like this, but they have their own area and they have to design, let's say, a bathroom and they actually have to create the flooring, make sure that the toilet and the sink are measured out properly, that everything that the that the plumbing is going to work, the electrical work. I mean, it's a process. Now that's maybe a couple of weeks and build a construction. You walk in, let's say on a Monday and all of a sudden they have a roof up and they're learning how to do roofing and how to measure properly, properly. Um, you may walk in the next week and they're building a tiny house because you can't build a whole house, you know, in that space. But we have a pretty nice space right across in the area from carpentry or from building. Construction is carpentry and they may be building Adirondack chairs or a new dresser for one of their parent's bedrooms. They are creating kit or nightstands. Every single student starts with a beautiful nightstand. They that's the first thing they do when they come here and they leave with something that they create that is more beautiful than anything in my home, quite frankly. So there's a lot of there's a lot of things that they but there's a lot of theory to learn. First. They don't just jump in. They have to learn all the safety, first of all. And the theory behind why things work and how measurements work and proper craftsmanship. And there's so many things to learn.
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Jeff Krakoff: I'm curious roughly how much then of the curriculum is the theory versus the hands on practical training?
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Regina Hiler: That's a very good question. Every programs to every day the students are here for two hours. So I'll give you an example. For HVAC, heating, ventilation and air conditioning. I would say there in the theory room for about an hour. Then there's an hour of the practical application, maybe in another program, heavy, heavy equipment repair where they're working on heavy equipment. They may be in the theory room for 20 minutes, 30 minutes depending, and then they're out into the lab. What they might be in there for an hour and a half. So the next day, it just depends on the situation. Every class is different in every situation is different. So to give you an accurate answer, I would say about 50/50 and sometimes 30/70. It just depends.
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Jeff Krakoff: Got it. How about cooperative education? How does that fit into what you do.
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Regina Hiler: That fits in after a student? It gets to their senior year and they they accomplish pretty much everything on the task list. Every single program has a task list that's guided by by the Department of Education. And if they have shown that they want to work in the real world or even they come to us and say, I already have a job, I'm ready to do this. And all their credits are straight at their sending school and they're doing a great job and we work it into their schedule. They could go into the world of work. Right now we have 45 students out working in various locations and they still get credit for coming here because they have to come back and they have to meet with the co-op coordinator and also meet with their teachers and make sure that they're doing everything that they are supposed to do to stay current at their job and safe and that they're actually reporting to work, which we don't have an issue with, that they like to work here. And then the coordinator reaches out and speaks with the business and industry, and it's making certain the kids are doing what they need to do. And I should say young adults, not kids, because they are young adults out there working. That's how that works.
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Jeff Krakoff: So students are going through your programs. What kind of certifications and accreditations can they earn there?
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Regina Hiler: There's a ton and actually I had to print it. I print it out because there's so many. It's unbelievable. So for auto technology, the students can become a piece inspector. They could they could get their safety inspection. We just implemented a missions that kids are actually going to be moving into that role soon. For HVAC, there's EPA refrigerant. For building construction. There's forklift, collision repair. We have car certifications, computer networking. We have comp certifications, which quite frankly they do in Ivy League schools. So they're doing a lot of things here that are impressive. I think every single program has more than one certification. Health assistant, as you would imagine, would have CPR, blood work, pathogens, things like that. Graphic design, the Adobe Suite. We also have an SP two certification here, which is called Safety and Pollution Training. That's what a lot of the programs it's it's recognized in our area and beyond. So there's a there's certifications, accreditations and articulations and pretty much every program, articulations in every program.
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Jeff Krakoff: And I take it these are things required when they want to enter the workplace. So they're a little bit ahead of the game already, right?
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Regina Hiler: They are like for welding. We just had, I think, all 12 students who tried to attempt the AWS certification, and that's American Welding Society. But there's different facets of it. Like there's the there's gash. There's I'm going to say it incorrectly, but there's the gas shielded metal arc welding. Then there's the flux core. And there's different types that the students get. It helps build their confidence. They may go into the world of work and they may say, We want you to do that again, but we see you could do it because you did it maybe a year ago, but it just brings up their confidence level so high and they do such a nice job. But every single kid. My point of that was every student who tried that cert got it. Which is impressive.
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Jeff Krakoff: Yeah. Batting 100, 100% there. So I was reading about the SOAR (students occupationally and academically ready)? Can you explain that for us?
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Regina Hiler: Sure. SOAR is something that is recognized through the Department of Education and actually pushed through the Department of Education, which is it's a good thing. It actually if you go to college transfer.net and you have Bureau of Career and Tech Ed, you could literally type in. A program of study. Let me give you an example. So in air conditioning, if you typed in zip code, which is the class of classification of instructional program 47.0201, it would pop. There would be a list of schools that would accept what we do here. Now, the student to get articulated credits, maybe three credits, maybe even 12 credits, just depending. Now the students have to get above a 2.75 overall with their GPA and also in coordination with their sending school. They have to be proficient on their exam. They had to have completed the task list. All things that students excel at here, they are wonderful agreements. The SOAR agreements, however, sometimes they're a little far. They may be the agreement may be a college of Technology, which is amazing, or Harrisburg Community College. What our students take up a little bit more take advantage of a little more. Here are local articulations, for instance, sports medicine. Right now we have an articulation with Duquesne. We have one with Community College of Butler County. So those aren't SOAR recognized. They're called 1 to 1 articulations. And more of our students take advantage of those that we form ourselves.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay, So we've talked a lot about the wonderful training that students can get. But now when it's time to find a job, how do your students learn about opportunities once they're ready?
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Regina Hiler: Well, I will tell you, this past year, this school year, I mentioned I said this out loud. I said I didn't know that we were an employment agency. And I don't mean that in any disrespect. We have people calling us and saying, do you have welders? Do you have students in machine tech? Do you have students who are like the manufacturer? Of course we do. So we have great, how do I want to say a great creation with like the manufacturing consortium, the health care consortium, but also every single one of our programs we have to have an active occupational advisory committee that actually comes twice a year to meet with our teachers, to help us with curriculum instruction, what equipment we need, what different certifications we may we should offer that maybe the state isn't pushing. And from there, a lot of formations and a lot of bonds are created where we may have someone sitting in auto tech who is a member from right automotive or Bariel, and they say we need students and we see what you do here and then that gets the conversation going. But honestly, if the students look out the window, if the students drive up and down the street, they find jobs, they do and we do help them. But most of the time they come to us and say, I found a job and then we help them. Yeah, it's amazing right now just the opportunities they have and it's all different. Some go into right into the world of work, which is amazing. They'll continue to educate themselves their whole life. Some go into a traditional college route, some go into a union where they're getting paid to learn and a free it's a free education. So it's amazing. There's a lot out there.
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Jeff Krakoff: As you mentioned, you're not an employment agency, but sometimes you fill that role for students. If somebody is listening and is out of business, that could use Vo-tech specialization and skills, how can they go about letting you know so you can let your students know?
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Regina Hiler: Right on our website we actually have contact information about if you'd like to post a job. Now we actually we do look at the job and we do make sure it's something that would relate to what our students do. Very rarely have we gotten any that that we that that don't make any sense. But most of them do. Anyone who contacts us, that's all they have to do is go to go to Butlertech.us and they will see that there's a it's under community and they could call us if they just call them a number will help them.
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Jeff Krakoff: All right. Well, lots of good information. Is there anything else you'd like to let us know about and share before I let you go?
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Regina Hiler: I do not think so. I'm very proud of the students in the school. And our whole job is to get them out there to the world of work, whether it's through college and or career readiness. We're preparing them. That's it.
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Jeff Krakoff: All right. Well, that was Regina Hill, our executive director at Butler County Area Vocational Technical School. Thanks so much for your time.
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Regina Hiler: Thank you.
