At a St. Bernard Parish Council meeting on Tuesday, the parish administration and Nunez Community College, along with GNO Inc., announced an initiative to provide local high school students with college-level technical training. The program, financed with $500,000 in parish Community Development Block Grant funds, will help develop and buy equipment for the advanced manufacturing classes and would pay...
At a St. Bernard Parish Council meeting on Tuesday, the parish administration and Nunez Community College, along with GNO Inc., announced an initiative to provide local high school students with college-level technical training. The program, financed with $500,000 in parish Community Development Block Grant funds, will help develop and buy equipment for the advanced manufacturing classes and would pay tuition for 140 students, ages 16 to 24, to participate in the two- to three-year program.
Teresa Smith, Nunez's executive director of institutional advancement, said alumni of the program are expected to earn about $30,000 to $40,000 annually within three months of graduating. St. Bernard Chief Administrative Officer Jerry Graves said that's just the base salary, and that most people in such careers in the metro New Orleans area eventually earn more than $60,000 annually.
Jana Sikdar, GNO Inc.'s educational liaison, said such programs help keep people working in the New Orleans area. "It will connect people to jobs here as opposed to Ohio or Tennessee," she said.
The programs will focus on skill sets such as industrial maintenance or process technology, often known as P-Tech. Smith said, for example, that the college might purchase a welding simulation machine and institute an introduction welding class.
Councilman Guy McInnis, a high school teacher, said he can see the need for such programs. "We have a lot of students who need this track as opposed to the four-year college track," he said.
Graves said he expects to receive another $50,000 to $75,000 grant for the program through the Regional Planning Commission.
The new program comes on top of one announced last year to provide culinary, hospitality and entrepreneurship training to Nunez students. That program is being financed by a nearly $2.8 million grant through Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College to Career Training program.
About 315 students are graduating from Nunez on Tuesday night, Nunez Chancellor Thomas Warner said at the meeting.
View full sizeRebuilt houses next to vacant lots in St. Bernard in 2008. In other Parish Council news, the council introduced ordinances to finally begin the transfer of about 1,200 Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Louisiana Land Trust lots from the state to the parish. The actual transfer might not happen until the end of July.
The Parish Council also introduced the approval of about $9.7 million in bonds to mainly pay for fire services through the end of the year. While voters last year passed a 20-mill tax increase to get the Fire Department out of its budget hole and prevent layoffs, the parish government will not receive that money until January, so it needs a cash advance to keep the department afloat, Graves said after the meeting.