Western Area students impress state labor official
Welding student Rocco Milani, a sophomore at Peters Township High School, sends sparks flying.
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Fort Cherry High School junior Jake Kubacki practices his wiring skills.
Teacher James Westfall examines a skateboard with an electrical design.
The skateboard, Dennis McCarthy explained, is a vehicle of cooperation.
“Students in carpentry make this out of wood,” he said.
The executive director was assisting on a tour of his school, Western Area Career and Technology Center, standing in the electrical shop, where the skateboard in front of him had an appealing design. It had the appearance of tree branches deftly drawn into the surface.
Only there was no teenage artisan involved, and this wasn’t nature’s handiwork. The wood had been saturated with a mix of water and baking soda, then left to dry, before electrical students took over. They pounded in two nails, attached a 10,000-volt transformer to them and let it craft the meandering lines, a process called electrical etching.
“You don’t know the design you’ll get,” McCarthy said Monday afternoon, inside the Chartiers Township center. “We have interested kids who do things to be creative. Here, we have two departments working together. We pull all of the departments into cooperative ventures.
“Kids love to be here in every shop, so kids love being here.”
Daniel Kuba was pleased to be on hand Monday. Kuba, the workforce development director for the state Department of Labor & Industry, toured the facility off Western Avenue. He watched as teenage students, from nine Washington County public school districts, displayed the various skills for which they are being trained. They are preparing for possible careers in skilled trades, with manufacturing opportunities on the rise and projected to abound in the region.
These 10th- through 12th-graders worked diligently Monday, each wearing “uniforms” of different colors for welding, machine shop, masonry, carpentry, electrical and HVAC.
Kuba was impressed. “First of all, the faculty is fantastic. They have amazingly talented teachers here. They care about their programs, and they care about their students. They also connect with the community and connect with employers.”
Walking through the masonry department, where students were laying bricks, Kuba said: “This is fantastic. We need this skill set. It’s a dying art that not many people can do. These kids will have opportunities.”
Masonry work, he added, is not something he sees often at technology centers across the state.
Labor & Industry is behind expansion of STEM education (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and Gov. Tom Wolf’s PAsmart program. PAsmart, launched two years ago, has invested $40 million in STEM and computer science education statewide, and $20 million to expand job training through registered apprenticeships and industry partnerships.
WACTC serves students from Avella Area, Burgettstown Area, Canon-McMillan, Chartiers-Houston, Fort Cherry, McGuffey, Peters Township, Trinity Area and Washington. There are 23 in the morning sessions and 23 in the afternoon.