Vo-tech plan upsets parent
After hearing many rumors and talk, I just recently found out they are going to make the Laurel Highlands students that attend vo-tech go half days at the high school and half days at tech. I strongly disagree with this. I am a former tech student, so I know what all it involves. You have a full day of activity, you get your theory, and practical both throughout the day, and being at tech all day gives you enough time to do both. My son now attends the tech school and takes the welding course which he loves. He has to wear older clothes; a t-shirt, jeans and steel toed boots. At the beginning of the school year, his pants are nice and new but within a week or so, his jeans have burn holes. He normally comes home with a black face and dirty hands.
Are they going to be allowed to be at the high school wearing pants that have burn holes in them? What about being dirty? Not to mention there is now more time taken out of their day because they will now need to allow for clean up and change time. Will they provide a place and time for them to clean up?
Are there lockers at the high school big enough to hold their books, gym clothes, football or sport things, plus their tech uniforms and boots? What about the girls who take cosmetology? When I was in school they wore uniforms, and nurses shoes will they be allowed to wear the uniforms at the high school?
I personally think it is a bad idea going half days, it will take away from valuable training time. My son will be a senior, and he has been looking forward since 9th grade to being able to do work study. He wants to go to tech school part of the time and get a welding job part time.
He has kept his grades at the tech school straight A’s and is on the honor roll at the high school, he’s done all this planning on being allowed to do work study. Will they now have the time to do that with the half-day schedule? What will they miss while at work? The high school time or the tech time? The tech students can’t afford to miss either, they need the tech time to learn their trade and prepare for their certification tests, and they need the high school time to get all their credits.
And what about gas? The buses will be making double the trips they are now making, with gas the way it is, do you think that is a wise idea?
I understand the reason they want to do this is because they feel it will make them feel more like a part of their home school. I don’t agree with that either, and I’ve been one of those parents who complains about LH not including the tech students as much as they should. But I don’t see how this can make them more of a part of the home school. What if my son is at tech in the afternoon and they are having an activity in the afternoon at the high school, he will still miss it.
If there are important things going on or a pep rally or anything that the entire high school is involved in, why can’t they hold them in the afternoon and send a bus and dismiss the tech students early so they can attend? That way they are still at tech the majority of the day and only get dismissed an extra hour or so.
And just be sure that all announcements and papers that are given out at the high school are also given out and announced at tech. Isn’t there a student representative who can go each morning to the high school office and find out what is going on that day, and when they get to the tech school they report to the office for their morning announcements? There has to be a better way and use of time to make the tech students feel more a part of the high school.
Christine Brownfield
Uniontown