“What does a high school graduation diploma mean for Navajo County students today?”
Area education officials focused on that question recently as they outlined the county’s forward-looking education plan.
The discussion was moderated by Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology (NAVIT) Superintendent Matt Weber and Holbrook Unified School District Superintendent Robbie Koerperich, and was attended by school superintendents of the Joseph City, Whiteriver, Piñon, Snowflake, Blue Ridge districts, as well as representatives of Northland Pioneer College, and the county Board of Supervisors and superintendent of schools. State Senator Carlyle Begay attended telephonically.
“Sometimes we don’t feel as if our voice is being heard loud enough in terms of the sustainability of education and education funding in Navajo County and throughout the state,” Dr. Koerperich said.
“We cry a lot, but we don’t always put evidence behind it. We feel the economic impacts district by district, but if we look at things more broadly, how do our districts impact Navajo County?” he asked.
The forum’s focus was cohesively improving not only the county’s education system, but its economic stability as a whole, specifically through business development.
Koerperich added greater perspective by presenting the following statistics:
* Navajo County school districts employ more than 3,000 persons serving over 18,000 students, making it the county’s largest employer.
* County schools invest heavily in human resources (salaries and benefits), expending 96 percent of annual revenue in a school district per fiscal year, thus stimulating the economy annually.
* Navajo County is one of the poorest counties in the nation, but sees an average graduation rate of 80 percent annually.
Still, Koerperich expressed his feeling that high school graduating diplomas do not hold the intrinsic educational value they once did.
“At one time, when we were growing up, a diploma may have led to greater opportunities for job security, but today we have a true investment responsibility to do more for kids than simply get them to walk across that stage, so to speak, he said.
“It’s almost a disservice to focus on only getting them through the high school system. We need to be focusing on career and technical education, getting into a good two-year college, where they’ll get the fundamentals to go on to a four-year college or a post-bachelor’s degree,” Koerperich noted.
While some students may utilize skills gained during high school to establish themselves as entrepreneurs within the county, Koerperich said he found that the majority of students who do not seek technical career or secondary training are either not successful in a particular field, or leave their formal fields of study due to lack of employment.
“I’ve run into so many people locally who have college degrees in English, history, or even chemistry, that really don’t have a place to go here in our career market. Even with a bachelor’s degree, many end up with a lack of employment skills,” he said.
“I think general degrees have a lot of applicability in the workforce, and that a specialized degree can be very useful in some instances,” said NPC President Dr. Jeanne Swarthout.
Koerperich went on to relate that his district currently has on its teaching roster an aeronautical engineer who graduated with a chemistry degree and an English literature degree-holder who is teaching science to his Holbrook students.
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Part II will be published in the Dec. 18 edition of The Tribune-News.
