Skertich encourages increased career education support

By RANDY PIERCE

Recognizing the benefits of career and technical education from being a proponent of it and seeing results at the local level, Collinsville Community Unit School District 10 Superintendent Brad Skertich has encouraged the state to increase its financial support of such programs. 

Attending the most recent meeting of the Illinois State Board of Education in Springfield and speaking during the early portion of it designated for comments from the public, Skertich was referenced therein as a representative of the Collinsville Area Vocational Center. 

He first offered a statement of thanks to State Superintendent of Education Dr. Tony Sanders and his team for their efforts in bringing about an increase in career and technical education funding in an amount of $10 million for Illinois school districts. 

This will allow “better programming and better equipment for all of our vocational courses,” Skertich said, “and we are excited about the future.”

While local school districts are very grateful for this support, Skertich went on, he requested that the state board consider additional such funding increases in the future “because Illinois still sits far behind Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri who have a much smaller population than our state.”

This type of vocational focus, Skertich continued, not only benefits the students participating in such programs in their career pursuits but also serves “the businesses that are knocking on our doors to grab students to come and work for them.”

While improving programming and the type of equipment used in these courses is helped by the funding and considered a priority item, Skertich added that capital facilities’ needs are also a primary concern because much of that in use in Unit 10 originated in the 1970s and needs upgrading. 

“We have to improve those facilities to change the mindset, not only from our students but our general public and our parents,” Skertich told the ISBE, “that whether it is a four-year university, a trade school or a community college, it is vital that all of those provide” for the career training needs of the participants. 

The goal, he said, is to help students “so they can become productive citizens and have a really good living wage and benefits as they grow.”

Skertich was not the only individual to speak to the ISBE with a message like this. William Holt, who said he was the vice president of Aluminum Castings Company of Galesburg, which is near Peoria in the north central western portion of Illinois, presented a similar statement advocating for an increase in the CTE funding. 

Holt said the impact on such programs in the Galesburg area, resulting from a vocational center similar to the one in Collinsville, “has been tremendous” while such financial support from the state is critical for it to continue and expand. 

 

(Editor’s note: This story also appears in the August 2024 print edition of the Illinois Business Journal.)