Guidance counselors learn of opportunities
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STEUBENVILLE -- High school guidance counselors converged on Eastern Gateway Community College Tuesday to talk about the educational programs and job opportunities graduates can find in their own back yard.
Counselor Day, held in partnership with Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce and Education Committee and Jefferson County Education Service Committee, was open to counselors from Jefferson, Harrison and Columbiana counties. Locally, Indian Creek, Edison, Buckeye Local, Toronto, Steubenville High, Jefferson County JVS and Harrison Central were represented, with participants earning continuing educating units.
“Counselor Day is centered around letting people know there’s opportunities in Jefferson County and the Ohio Valley for our students,” said Cristen Tarquinio, EGCC’s director of digital media. “(It) was really fun, they got to go in the welding lab, the dental assisting lab -- seeing some of their alumni in the programs was really cool for them.”
The group also checked out the industrial maintenance program with Amelia Taggart, director of Industrial Trades, and met with Franciscan University of Steubenville representatives.
“It really is a cool event because it’s a community supporting each other,” Tarquinio said. “You don’t always see that. You don’t always see a Franciscan University and an Eastern Gateway supporting each other. We have students at EGCC who transfer on to Franciscan, and there are students Franciscan sends our way, they say, ‘Take this class and then come back to us.’ It really is a strong partnership.”
Employers were also represented, this year by Weld Inspection Technical Training Service from Bergholz, a fabrications solutions service company, and Upper Ohio Valley Building and Construction Trades, and it gave them “a chance to talk about jobs they had for students graduating high school that they could jump right into, there are really good jobs out there that just need a high school diploma,” she said.
After a networking lunch, the group heard a presentation from Melanie DiCarlo, director of articulation and transfer/tech prep coordinator, on the tech prep program, as well as another on the Pathways Program. Information tables featured materials from the Marine Corps, Kent State East Liverpool and Salem branch and the Chamber of Commerce.
“We talk to the counselors about what we have locally for their students,” Tarquinio said. “We want to keep talent and students close to home -- when they graduate high school, we want them to be enrolled, enlisted or employed.”
She said the Workforce and Education Committee “is working hard on making sure people know about the opportunities.”
“It’s so easy to forget what’s out there,” she said. “You can go down different pathways, whether you’re chasing a career or you want to get a bachelor degree. You don’t always know until you see it or hear about it. think that what the chamber’s workforce committee is committed to doing."
Chamber of Commerce President Kate Sedgmer said the program is “a perfect representation of what the chamber is all about.”
“It brought together two really great groups of people, education partners and business partners, for a chance to really collaborate and learn from one another,” she said. “The chamber feels really strongly about making sure our local students know about job opportunities that pay well and can provide a great living, right here in our county.”
The idea, Sedgmer said, is to stop the “brain drain, (convince) our kids (to) stay local.” To do that, she said, “We have to make sure there’s opportunities for (them so) they want to stay local.”
Sedgmer, on the job for just 90 days, said the labor pool is crucial to the future of business and industry everywhere, adding it’s the biggest complaint she hears from her members.
“The first thing they talk about is they need employees to be able to operate their businesses,” she said. “It’s a nationwide issue. Everybody’s fighting over the same group of kids going off to college. That’s why it’s vitally important for Jefferson County to make sure not only that there are business opportunities for kids, but that we make our county as business friendly and family friendly as possible so people really want to stay here and return here to live and work.”