Career Academy has provided more than 7,000 credit hours of education

Since its inception five years ago, the Jasper County Career Academy has provided a wealth of post-secondary educational opportunities for high school students in Jasper County.

“With the cost of college tuition going up ... it’s expensive,” Newton Senior High School Principal Bill Peters said. “We feel very good to be able to offer that kind of opportunity to our students.”

The career academy provides educational opportunities in several vocational career fields to augment what Jasper County high schools are already offering their students. It benefits from the many growing manufacturing businesses in the area.

The career academy primarily serves Jasper County students from the Baxter, Colfax-Mingo, Lynnville-Sully, Newton and Prairie City-Monroe school districts. When there are occasional openings in the program, students from other outlying school districts, such as Knoxville, also participate.

“The schools are billed for the students who go through,” career academy director Terry Norton said. “They generate additional student funds, which are used to offset the bill their school district gets from DMACC.”

The training the students get is offered in a state-of-the-art environment. Training programs include:

• automotive technology,

• auto collision repair,

• building trades,

• welding,

• culinary arts,

• information technology,

• criminal justice,

• teacher academy,

• health occupations, and

• Certified Nurse Assistant.

“We’re not trying to replace what the schools are providing their students but to enhance it,” Norton said. “I don’t pick at random which classes we’re going to add. Instead, I go out and ask the schools what programs they want us to add, what programs are going to be most beneficial to meet the needs of the high schools.”

In addition, students can study other traditional arts and sciences coursework for college transfer programs or work toward their two-year diploma or a certificate program. Since the inception of the program, Norton estimated, 775 students have completed the program.

In the previous four years, students have earned more than 7,000 credit hours from DMACC.

“I look at my job as to be an encouragement for them to get post-secondary training or education,” Norton said. “We’d like them to go to DMACC, but more importantly, we want them to continue on and pursue their education in whatever they are interested in.”

The bulk of the students who have participated in the career academy — somewhere between 400 and 500 — came from Newton Senior High School. Principal Bill Peters said he hasn’t yet added up the combined credit hours earned by those students but guessed it totaled between 3,000 and 4,000 college credits.

“It’s all different, depending on which strand they get into,” he said. “They get themselves there around 7:30 a.m. and stay through the entire first block, or until about 9:44 a.m. That translates differently in credit hours, depending on the college courses they’re taking.”

To be eligible for the program, students must be juniors or seniors who are “on track” with their other coursework at NHS. They must have completed all necessary prerequisite classes at the high school before enrolling in the career academy.

“If that’s something they want to do, and they’re eligible, we’ll work to carve up their schedule so they can attend classes during the morning,” Peters said. “It’s not something we push, though. We already offer 60 college credit hours at NHS — our teachers have the master’s degrees and are teaching the college prep courses in our school — but the Career Academy offers the classes we can’t keep up with here.”

Students who participate in the program can gain at least a year’s worth of college education free of charge, which can save them as much as $10,000, based on DMACC’s per-credit-hour charges. Most students continue on to a second year, working to earn either an associate’s degree or certificate of completion.

Matriculation into DMACC from the career academy is highest in the welding (90 percent), health occupations (80 percent) and auto collision (60 percent) courses. And with 95 percent of all DMACC students staying in Iowa after completion of their studies, it’s highly likely the investment in the career academy will have a direct impact on the local economy.

“We’re so fortunate to have this kind of opportunity right here in our own town,” Peters said. “It’s only two miles from the school to the career academy. It’s a much longer drive for many of the other schools ... it’s a great opportunity for our students.”

Daily News Editor Bob Eschliman may be contacted at (641) 792-3121, ext. 423, or at beschliman@newtondailynews.com.