The Snowflake Unified School District will receive $159,101, a .25 average daily membership (ADM) reimbursement for students who participate in the Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology program for the 2015 fiscal year, NAVIT Superintendent Matt Weber, advised the district governing board last week.

In making his annual report on the NAVIT program, Weber acknowledged Robin Palmer, who represents the school district on the NAVIT Governing Board, Alan Ramage, who is the Career and Technical Education (CTE) director at Snowflake High School, and Sherry Cosper, a career technician.

Snowflake was one of the original districts to join NAVIT in 1998, the second joint technology education district in the state and the first rural one, which includes schools in Navajo, Gila and Apache counties.

There are two primary purposes of NAVIT: to provide an additional funding stream to individual high school satellite CTE programs; and to provide additional CTE program offerings at community college hubs such as the Northland Pioneer College campuses in Show Low and Snowflake.

Each district is paid an extra .25 ADM, which is approximately $900 per student, Weber noted, and NAVIT pays 65 percent of maintenance and operations, and 40 percent of capital outlay funds to member districts, which is to be used for individual CTE satellite programs.

NAVIT provides all NPC and Eastern Arizona College dual enrollment textbooks to SHS students, said Weber. He noted that Denice Westover teaches multimedia dual enrollment with EAC, so NAVIT pays a dual enrollment stipend of $12,000 toward the career technician’s salary. NAVIT facilitates students’ state certification and pays the annual fee for Snowflake CTE teachers to be members of the Arizona Curriculum Consortium Wiki.

NAVIT offers nursing assistant and fire science in Snowflake, and cosmetology, welding, medical assistant, industrial maintenance and auto technician at other locations.

Enrollment has declined over the past few years. There are several factors contributing to the decline, according to Weber. The state no longer pays for freshmen to participate in NAVIT, and has increased the number of credits needed to graduate.

SHS Principal Larry Titus pointed out that they have made schedule changes to accommodate NAVIT students.

Students must pass the AIMS test or be within so many points to participate in NAVIT. Weber reported that there is a 96 percent graduation rate among NAVIT students, and 75 percent of graduates are placed in jobs related to their program, continue their education or join the military.

Weber said that the changes proposed for NPC’s Silver Creek Campus will not affect any of the NAVIT programs for the next several years.