By Jennifer Mrozowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Finneytown High School student Ashley Reinert, 17, feeds Shirley Clarke, a resident of Three Rivers Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

Move over, wood shop and auto mechanics. Make way for design technology, robotics and bioscience.

High school vocational education has gone the way of the typewriter. In its place is a high-tech wave of job preparation known as "career technical education" that's making its way to area middle and high schools.

Some students are learning at hospitals how to prepare patients for magnetic resonance images (an MRI). Some design computer programs to operate a robot. Still others soon may be altering the biochemistry of plants by developing a tomato plant that doesn't wilt.

In an age of technological advancements requiring highly specialized skills and a national shift from the manufacturing sector, educators realize they must prepare students to go beyond entry-level jobs to meet today's work force demands.

High schools across the Tristate are concentrating on developing all students' vocational, academic and technical skills. That's because nearly every job demands workers to be proficient in technology, as well as reading, writing and math.

"If you went back to the '50s and '60s and then transplanted yourself in today's modern manufacturing facility, it would be like the difference between day and night," said Floyd McKinney, director of the National Dissemination Center for Career and Technical Education, based at Ohio State University.

Look no further, he said, than under the hood of a car. Knowing how to use a wrench and socket simply won't do.

Today's automobiles come equipped with an engine control unit, transmission controller and antilock brakes.

Vocational ed changes

Despite advancements in technology, high school vocational education programs across the nation were slow to catch on.

"Vocational education, to be perfectly honest, many times was an area where you put kids who you did not think had a future for technical information or for college," said Ruth Armstead, a registered nurse and a career technical teacher at Woodward Career Technical High School.

From 1982 to 1998, enrollment in vocational education declined from 34 percent of graduates concentrating in vocational education to 25 percent, according to a 2002 study by the U.S. Department of Education.

Today, fewer academic credits than ever are being spent on vocational education.

Rather than continue to lose students, vocational schools began to revolutionize their courses.

Within the last five years, high schools locally and nationwide began incorporating more academic courses into graduation requirements and more technology training to meet industry demands.

"Students must have the opportunity to learn academic skills in relationship to broad job skills required in the workplace," said Paula Long, Senior Manager of Contributions and Community Relations at Procter and Gamble.

Today's vocational schools - referred to as "career tech schools" - also seek to attract the best and the brightest kids who are considering two- and four-year degrees.

At the same time, high schools want to give students the skills necessary to transition directly into the workplace after graduation.

Vocational programs and courses are also attracting students who want to go into high-paying careers.

Nathan Closser, 14, worked on designing cars and T-shirts and assembling rockets as part of a program at North College Hill Junior-Senior High School last year.

"It was really neat because it's not like normal boring class," he said.

The tech bug

Local schools see the technical writing on the walls, and more are incorporating high-tech vocational programs into their curriculum.

Ohio is writing new technology standards, which outline what students in grades K-12 should know in the area of technology.

Cincinnati Public Schools worked with local community and business leaders to analyze work force trends when creating a new curriculum for Woodward High School, a low-performing neighborhood high school in Bond Hill.

Just 33 percent of the students entering ninth grade at Woodward in 1998-'99 graduated in the 2001-'02 school year.

The school district opted to house three specialized academies at Woodward:

• Health/bioscience

• Building technologies

• Advanced manufacturing

The new Woodward Career Technical High School opens Thursday. All three academies require students to follow a college prep course of study along with vocational training.

Like Cincinnati, other school districts are remaking schools to address the growing tech demand or are adding tech labs and programs. And students are snapping up the courses.

West Clermont School district last year opened 10 smaller high school programs on its two campuses in an effort to engage students and offer them options upon graduation. Two of the new schools, which are still in the developing stages, have a tech emphasis:

• Business and Technology School.

• Math, Science and Technology School.

The Sharonville-based Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development, which provides career technical education to 36 school districts and offers programs at its four separate Oaks campuses, is expanding its technology offerings.

Introductory programs in information technology will be offered at six more high schools this year through Great Oaks' onsite high school programs. The schools are Glen Este, Batavia, Milford, Reading, St. Bernard-Elmwood and Clinton-Massie.

Through the information technology program, which lasts at least one semester, ninth- and 10th-graders gain experience in network systems, information support and services, programming and software development, and interactive media.

Juniors and seniors can continue pursuing information technology at one of the Great Oaks' campuses.

North College Hill School District eliminated its traditional industrial arts program three years ago and sold the industrial arts equipment. The district, along with Great Oaks, then added a technology education lab and program.

"The tech ed program helps students develop skills and gives them awareness of careers available today," Superintendent Gary Gellert said.

North College Hill students can take a foundation program in industry and engineering. Students, beginning as early as eighth grade, cycle through stations that give them exposure to fields such as graphic design, computer animation and rocketry.

Students in the Oaks health technology program say the belief that vocational kids can't make it in a regular high school is far from the truth.

Finneytown High School student Ashley Reinert, 17, worked full time at Three Rivers Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Eastgate through the Oaks.

She spent this summer learning how to care for patients, including bathing and showering them, tracking their nutrition and how often they walk throughout the center. She entered that data daily into a computerized medical chart.

Reinert, who has the same course requirements as other high school students and plans to attend college to become a registered nurse, laughed at the thought of vocational education being easy and offered her retort.

"I just say that I wanted to start my career early," she said. "And I have a better job than working at Burger King."

E-mail jmrozowski@enquirer.com