Poudre, Thompson school districts receive $4M in grants to support workforce development

Poudre and Thompson school districts have been awarded grants totaling $4 million from the Bohemian Foundation and Larimer County to enhance regional workforce development, officials from all four organizations said in a joint news release earlier this week.

Each school district will receive $2 million — $1 million from the Bohemian Foundation and $1 million from Larimer County. The county’s share will come from funds allocated by the American Rescue Plan Act, the news release said.

Poudre School District will use the grant funding to enhance opportunities for students to earn certifications and college credit in advanced manufacturing through the Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools program at Poudre High School and the district-wide Futures Lab, housed at Poudre High, which is being rebranded next fall to become the PSD Career Tech Center.

Thompson School District will use the funding to construct and develop a new first-responder pathway for students interested in becoming an emergency medical technician or pursuing careers in law enforcement of firefighting.

In accepting the grant funding, both school districts committed to the long-range sustainability of the programs through staffing, transportation and operational support. Additional details will be announced soon, the news release said.

“Bohemian Foundation is deeply invested in promoting economic mobility and supporting environments where youth thrive,” said Cheryl Zimlich, Bohemian Foundation president and chief executive officer, in the news release. “We are grateful for the opportunity to work with both school districts and numerous community partners to provide youth with inspiring, supportive, and creative education and life opportunities.”

More: 'We have heard you': PSD school board halts plans to close, consolidate schools

The Bohemian Foundation, founded by Fort Collins billionaire and philanthropist Pat Stryker, is a private family foundation that supports efforts to build strong communities, according to its website.

A key component of the grant funding is collaboration between the two school districts and charter schools within their boundaries, allowing high school students throughout the region to take advantage of the expanded opportunities in each, said Tanya Alcaraz, PSD’s director of career and innovation. The workforce projects supported by the grant will focus on career pathways in health care, manufacturing, automotive and aviation, with a special focus on traditionally underrepresented populations, the news release said.

Alcaraz and Kelby Benedict, outgoing director of PSD’s Futures Lab, spoke to the Coloradoan in March about the rebranding and restructuring of that program to meet state and federal definitions of a designated career and technical school, opening up additional funding opportunities, and better serve the needs of the district’s students.

“We’re trying to be more regional as we think about providing options for students and collaborating with other districts,” Alcaraz said.

The PSD Career Tech Center will continue to be housed at Poudre High but will no longer duplicate courses available to students at Fort Collins, Fossil Ridge, Poudre and Rocky Mountain high schools and Timnath and Wellington middle-high schools, said Benedict, who is leaving at the end of the school year to work at an international school in Izmir, Turkey. PSD is in the process of hiring his replacement, district spokesperson Madeline Novey said last month.

Instead, the PSD Career Tech Center will increase its offerings of more specialized courses in 10 identified career pathways: audio production, automotive services, aviation, behavioral health, college launch, computer science, construction, early childhood education, medical assistant and natural resources.

Those courses are designed to serve as a bridge for students seeking career certifications or two- or four-year college degrees in those areas of study, providing them with more advanced instruction than a traditional high school can offer while better preparing them for the rigors of college courses in those fields. Many of the offerings provide college credit through concurrent enrollment programs with Colorado community colleges, including Front Range and Aims, and four-year colleges and universities.

“It comes back to the idea of blurring the lines between high school and college and really being a designated career and technical school, so that we’re not duplicating what students can take at their home high schools. …” Benedict said. “We want to be that value add. So, some of our home schools are offering level 1 and level 2 courses, and we’re really offering those level 3 and those work-based learning opportunities for students when it comes to CTE.”

More: School board approves new graduation requirements for Poudre School District

The state reimburses school districts nearly 40 cents for every dollar spent on CTE programs taught by licensed and credentialed teachers, he said. Finding one or two teachers for specialized programs, and purchasing sometimes large and expensive equipment, such as milling lathes, hydraulic vehicle lifts and medical-simulation training dummies and monitors, for a single site is far more efficient than doing so for multiple sites. For example, the district is purchasing an electric kit car with some of the money from a $500,000 state grant to increase youth apprenticeships that students in its automotive technology pathway will be able to put together and take apart each quarter.

Students who want to continue into more specialized programs in that pathway and others offered at the PSD Career Tech Center will be able to do so through partnerships with Front Range and Aims community colleges, Alcaraz said. A student in the medical assistant pathway, for example, will be able to complete the first six to 10 credits through PSD and then move on to Front Range Community College “for more of the internship, hands-on experience” that its staff is better trained and equipped to provide, she said.

The Futures Lab served about 150-160 students a year in its first four years of existence and 215 this year, its first at Poudre High, Benedict said. More than 320 students had pre-registered for one or more courses next year as of mid-March, he said.

The biggest changes for next fall, he said, are the elimination of business, entrepreneurship and culinary courses that were similar to or duplicates of what students could take at their home high schools in favor of more advanced offerings in programs designed to address local workforce needs.

“We really need to align with industry demand and need as well as student interest,” Benedict said. “So, we, this year, have really been reflecting on some of the reports that came out of the local region in terms of higher education and industry and looking at what are some of those pathways that are growing and where there’s high demand as well as making sure as a DCTS that all of our pathways have credentialed instructors, and we’re getting that reimbursement back from the state to be able to continue offering them.”

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and  facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Local school districts receive $4M in grants for workforce development