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Superintendent
Mark Cleveland has big dreams for the Owen County School System.
And one of those dreams is the creation of a vocational school
in the community.
Now, more than 70 Owen County High School juniors and seniors
travel 45 minutes one way to attend one class at the Carroll County
Vocational-Technical School. They miss the possibility of two
classes because of the transport time to and from the school,
which offers classes in nursing, auto mechanics, carpentry and
more.
“The bone of contention has always been that bus ride,”
Cleveland said. “They’re losing a whole instructional
unit in transportation.”
Cleveland said he can’t complain about the quality of teaching
the students receive, only that that time would be better served
if they were in the classroom rather than on a bus.
“Right now, the advantages of taking them over there outweigh
the disadvantages or we wouldn’t do it,” he added.
Not doing it is exactly what Cleveland would like to see happen
in the next two years or so.
His dream is to purchase the spec building at the Owen County
Industrial Park and implement a vocational school in the structure.
The move would basically eliminate transportation time for the
majority of students and would provide training opportunities
in the community. While high school students would utilize the
facility during the day, adult classes could be offered in the
evenings.
“This discussion all started one day when Jen and Rob and
I asked ‘What if?’” Cleveland said. Jen is Jennifer
Stafford, principal of Carroll County’s vocational school
and a former teacher in Owen County. Rob is Rob Stafford, her
husband, current chief financial officer for the Owen County School
System and former principal of Owen County Elementary School.
“Those 90 minutes the students are on the bus, we can’t
make it up. It’s not the same as it is for the kids from
Carroll County who can walk across the street for a class at the
vocational school then go back to the high school for their next
period’s class.”
Bringing a vocational school to Owen County would also open up
classes to freshmen and sophomores, a move Cleveland said would
help with accountability issues at the high school level and part
of an overall plan to ease the transition from middle to high
school for students.
Included in that plan would be the school-within-a-school for
ninth graders as well as offering additional electives to students
early on and saving harder classes for the junior and senior years.
In the current scheduling situation, students take all their requirements
first and can then fill out their schedules in their last two
years with electives that are considered by some students to be
easier than the the required classes.
“We want to make the freshman year exploratory and give
students a chance to make the transition and be successful,”
Cleveland explained.
But the start of the school won’t happen overnight.
Discussions are currently under way with the Owen County Industrial
Authority, which owns the property and the spec building in the
industrial park on the north side of Owenton.
“That building is near perfect for this idea,” the
superintendent said of the spec building.
Cleveland said the next step would be to survey members of the
community to see what kinds of programs they would like to see
offered. He said he’d like to steer away from those available
in Carroll County, except maybe nursing because of the possibilities
for those types of positions in the community.
One idea is an aircraft mechanics class, an idea that started
when Cleveland thought of the community’s proximity to the
airport in Northern Kentucky, as well as a discussion with Carl
Cummins, owner of the Owen County Airpark in the northeastern
portion of the county.
“Carl said he could definitely use a mechanic trained to
work on airplane engines,” Cleveland said.
To start the school, five different programs — from a list
of about 70 — would be selected. Community meetings and
a formal survey process should occur in the coming months.
And finally, the issue has to go before the General Assembly for
its approval and funding.
Cleveland said he hopes to have a proposal before the legislators
when they meet in January in the odd-year’s short session,
although a formal decision can’t take place until 2008 when
the legislature meets in a full-session and approves the next
biennium’s budget.
“I want this before them in January,’ the superintendent
said of the idea. “I want to get on their radar screen and
make them realize this is something we’re serious about,
not just something we’ve dreamed up as a pork barrel project,
but as a need for Owen County.”
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