By Brittany Woodby

BWOODBY@CULLMANTIMES.COM



Local teachers will trade in white boards for hard hats this summer as they become the student at several manufacturing plants through the Cullman Area Workforce Solutions Educator Exchange Awards Program.

“What we’d like to do is get some of the teachers into the factory work environment,” said Carl English, human resources manager at Topre in Cullman and member of CAWS education focus group. “Some (teachers) have never been in a factory and we hope they will gain an understanding of the skills and work ethic required in factory jobs.”

The organization ran a pilot of the program last summer, taking 16 teachers from city and county middle schools and high schools and placing them in local factories such as Topre, Louisiana Pacific Corporation, Wal-Mart Distribution, REHAU, Inc. and others. English said the program’s purpose was to teach educators how to reach a demographic of students who may not be cut out for four years of higher education but still need to learn skills marketable in the workforce.

“Today’s high schools put a lot of emphasis on going to college,” English said. “Not all students are going to go to college. Some drop out after a year or two and then have no real skills over and above high school education, where if they spent two years at Wallace State learning skills like engineering and machining, they could become very employable.”

English said this year, CAWS hopes to expand the program to include as many as 25 educators. Participants in the program will not just watch the factory from behind glass but actually be on the floor, receiving training and operate machinery like other employees.

“They will work eight hours a day. At Topre, they will rotate through different technical jobs to begin to get a grasp of what type of skills students need,” English said. “At the end of the program, they will be required to make a lesson plan to teach students what they need to learn. Here, the teachers will be learning some die-making fundamentals, learning to program robots and setting up welding machines. They may spend a day or two in our quality control department before that starts, and then go though a two-day safety orientation like other employees.”

In turn, the educators will be paid for their time and work, earning $10 an hour from the company they work for and an additional $10 an hour from CAWS, which received funding for the project from the President’s Community-Based Job Training Grant.

“The teacher will make $20 an hour for the two weeks, but the education they receive will be worth a lot more,” English said.

The program is not only beneficial to teachers and their students, but also to local industries, who receive crucial feedback from outsiders to their plants.

“We’ve received great feedback from the teachers,” English said. “The industries were enthusiastic, the teachers were enthusiastic. Each was required to make notes every day about what they see, and here at this plant teachers were required to talk to me every day for five minutes before going home. That way, we can learn if there are any safety issues, or how efficient our training and communication with our employees is.”

Teachers were also asked to submit assessments of the program to help CAWS tailor requirements to suit education needs.

Many educators responded that their work was “intense and overwhelming,” and could see “real-life applications that could be used in math and science classrooms.”

“We like to focus on two areas in CAWS. One is keeping kids in school and two is letting students know there are ways to be successful in life other than getting a college degree,” English said. “Our manufacturing base is slipping away and in the coming years there will be an even greater shortage in skilled people. This lack in manufacturing workers will put even more demand on sending jobs overshores.”

English said CAWS has sent out applications to teachers in both the county and city school systems and will be accepting them until April 30. The group intends to meet May 5 to decide how many instructors will be accepted into the program and choose this summer’s participants. Teachers will then be paired up with a business. The program will run from June 4 to Aug. 10. For more information on the 2008 Educator Exchange Award or an application, contact Kirk Mancer at 255-0721 or via e-mail at kmancer@cullmanchamber.org.