Carl Perkins and Tech Prep
The Southwest Minnesota Carl Perkins/Tech Prep Consortium is comprised of 30 high schools and Minnesota West Community and Technical College, our post-secondary partner.  The consortium works very closely with other agencies that serve the area, regional businesses, and other consortiums throughout the state.  Go to the www.lifetimeoflearning.com link or contact Tom Hoff at 507-537-2271 or tom.hoff@swsc.org for more information.

Program Improvement: High Schools that participate in the Southwest Minnesota Carl Perkins/Tech Prep Consortium receive an annual entitlement to be used for improvement of state approved career and technical programs.  Participating high schools complete a brief application that specifies the approved programs that will be making the purchase and the bill is paid directly by the SW/WC Service Cooperatives, the consortium’s fiscal host.  In 2003-04 over  $120,000 in improvements were made to approved programs.  Examples include: new text books that links to industry standards, consulting services, mileage and sub fee reimbursement for staff development, commercial grade equipment, student organization travel costs, industry based software, instructional videos, etc.

Career/Education Planning: The Carl Perkins/Tech Prep Consortium has a deep commitment to assisting students with their career and education plan development.  Over 20 schools use their Carl Perkins entitlement to purchase the Minnesota Career Information System for students to use for career and education research and planning.  Additionally, about 24 schools access the Kuder Career Planning System (paid by the Consortium) for unlimited career interest, skills, and values assessment for high school students.  In 2003-04 over 1,800 students in the consortium took advantage of this state-of-the-art on-line career assessment system.  Some schools choose to use Carl Perkins funds to enhance or develop career courses, job shadowing programs, work-site field trips, and student internship programs.  2003-04 marked the second year that the consortium partnered with the 5 Minnesota West campuses and Southwest Minnesota State University to provide  “Career Exploration Days”, which gave over 1,400 high school sophomores and juniors a chance to visit with professionals and post-secondary instructors in their career field(s) of interest.  Our website, www.lifetimeoflearning.com provides an interactive “Pathways” program to help students plan their high school course schedules.  The on-line “Tech Prep College Credit” project provides teachers the opportunity to request college credit certificates that students can redeem in over 40 post-secondary courses at more than a dozen campuses.

Transition: Project Discovery is the cornerstone of the consortium’s transition program.  This program has faithfully served students, special education teachers, and schools for 20 years.  Over 170 students come to the career exploration lab in Marshall to receive interest and work/learning style assessments and to explore careers first-hand through a variety of career exploration projects (over 30 careers to choose from).  Year-in and year-out Project Discovery has been rated as delivering excellent transition planning services to students and special education teachers.  Carl Perkins/Tech Prep Funds and staff time are used to support annual “Work Skills Day” for high school special education students.  This event provides students the opportunity to compete with other students in the region in the areas of: Completing Applications, Interviewing, Problem Solving on the Job, and General Employment Knowledge.  This event has been so popular that several neighboring consortiums have requested our assistance in helping them replicate the event in their regions.

Student Competition: Participation and competition in student organizations is one way to demonstrate the strength of student achievement in career and technical programs.  Our region, consistently has some of the strongest programs in Minnesota in FCCLA, BPA and FFA.  Teachers report that Carl Perkins entitlements provide them the opportunity to purchase industry-specific curriculum, commercial grade equipment and other state-of-the-art technology that gives their students “an edge” during competition.  In 2002-03 our consortium (in partnership with Minnesota West and regional businesses) established the “Technical Skills Challenge”.  By 2003-04 the number of participants had doubled to about 100 students at the final competition.  The purpose of the competition is to provide opportunities for students (that don’t belong to a student organization or where one is not available) to compete in such areas as: CADD, Digital Photography, Graphic Design, Fluid Power, Pneumatics, Web Page Development, Automotive Technology, Computer Troubleshooting, and Accounting.  The event is rotated to different campuses around the region and the variety of competition areas will be expanded again in 2004-05.

Student Activities
SW/WC Service Cooperatives’ Educational Service Center plans and coordinates quality programs, conferences and competitions for students in the eighteen counties of southwest and west central Minnesota.  The popularity of these activities is evident by the continued growth in participation.  Each activity is listed below.

Conferences
  *Conference for Young Artists (grades 3-8)
  *Conference for Young Writers (grades 3-8)
  *Exploring Our World...Science and Nature Conference (grades K-6)

Competitions
  *Spelling Bee (grades 5-8)
  *Student Inventors (grades K-12)
  *Future City Competitions (grades 7-8)
  *Junior High Knowledge Bowl (grades 7-9)
  *Senior High Knowledge Bowl (grades 7-12)

Other Programs
  *Children’s Author and Illustrator Program
  *Summer Environmental Camp (grades 5-8)

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT SERVICES