By Nolan Madden County education and state officials convened last week in an effort to assess and outline the county’s forward-looking education plan. The discussion was moderated by Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology (NAVIT) School District Superintendent Matt Weber and Holbrook Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Robbie Koerperich, and was attended by superintendents of the Joseph City, Whiteriver, Piñon, Snowflake and Blue Ridge districts, as well as Northland Pioneer College administrators, county supervisors and the county superintendent of schools, State Representative Jennifer Benally and State Senator Carlyle Begay. “I see a lot of clientele entering the education arena who are trying to find jobs with their general academic degree, and they really aren’t able to find suitable positions,” Koerperich said of his experience within the Holbrook district. In the secondary education arena, it is seen that undergraduate students are not equipped with skills needed to chart a clear career course, according to Mark Vest, vice president for Learning and Student Services at NPC. “In my experience from 25 years ago as an advisor to students who were dropping out of Ohio University College of Business, what we saw as more frustrating to students than the choices of degree options was the lack of a plan. In many cases, students were choosing degree or program options without really having a coherent sense of what their plan is. “I think there are lots of career pathways out there to choose degrees from, but what we’re seeing throughout higher education is students who are making uninformed choices, and therefore they’re putting themselves in bad positions,” Vest related. According to Koerperich, employment within Navajo County currently sits at six percent for government employees, 57 percent in private sector jobs and 36 percent for the self-employed, indicating that the county is producing a generation of graduates who mainly seek private industry jobs. Unemployment within the county is lowest in Show Low at three percent, is 11 and 19 percent in Winslow and Holbrook, and is highest in Whiteriver at 38 percent. In the districts between Heber and Whiteriver, the median worker age is 24 to 56 years old, a sign that a fairly young workforce is on-hand to support the local economy. Interestingly, the county’s median income ($51,211) is highest in Holbrook and Joseph City, a fact very likely linked to Arizona Public Service Co. employees working at Cholla Power Plant. But with APS slated to close its Cholla operations within the next decade, the county would soon bear the burden of a dismal employment market once those jobs disappear. The officials have eyed career and technical education as crucial to building the county’s long-term economic and educational stability, the latter of which could see major cuts without congressional approval of Joint Technical Education District (JTED) funding next July. County Economic Development Director Paul Watson said he feels that the issue is a conflicting “chicken-and-egg” scenario. “We don’t have a major university in this area, so we’re not going to attract industry that is looking for the intellectual capital that comes with that. To me, looking at not only Navajo County, but this whole region, it’s more the technical trade industry that will be attracted here, whether it’s agriculture or forestry related. “When you talk about the statistics of the number of people getting bachelor’s degrees, if they’re getting bachelor’s degrees, they aren’t staying in its related field, they’re moving on to another discipline. So we have an outward migration of intellectual capital. “As a county, we have to ask ourselves: What is it that we are, what is it that we want to become, and is it realistic for us to try to become something we aren’t now and that we don’t have the infrastructure to become? I, for one, would hate to see career and technical education be cut,” said Watson. During her recent tour of the Holbrook School District, Benally was told candidly by an NPC welding program student that she attends the district solely because it provides her access to the trade program. Benally acknowledged that technical training programs substantially foster students who would otherwise suffer with little academic and career direction. “I do understand, from my background as a prosecutor and district court judge, the importance of the JTED programs. So many times we would see defendants come through the court system, with court as their last resort as a place where they can get help. “We would assist them to detoxify and then ask them, ‘When did you quit school?’ We’ve actually helped people, and I’m glad that we have the programs at NPC, because often we would have to send an individual to Oklahoma or elsewhere to obtain a welding degree. Instead, we are able to keep the money here locally. “A lot of kids aren’t going to do well in colleges or universities. But they look at what is available, what’s making money, and many will recognize that they have friends or relatives who are successful as welders. So you have to generate that interest while the kids are still in school, and I fully support the JTED program. If we don’t, we aren’t going to have anything left to provide our kids the ability to get a job,” Benally related. She was joined by Begay in a firm commitment to meet with Governor Doug Ducey’s cabinet for a timely decision before the January legislative session to remove legislative language set to cut JTEDs in fiscal year 2017. *** Part I of this two-part series was published in the Dec. 16 edition of The Tribune-News.