PLCC prepares for next year

The Portage Lakes Career Center board of education April meeting took care of many miscellaneous necessities for the upcoming school year, while spotlighting one of the school’s programs.

Rachel Householder, who teaches the athletic health care and sports science class at Coventry High School for PLCC, came to highlight how the class has been going.

The class is for physical therapy, which has been a growing field she said. Because of the growing desire for students to go into the field, she is trying to prepare her students for college.

“It’s a priority to make them better than someone they are going to school with,” Householder said.
They go over the body, values of exercise, and the benefits different sports have on the body. The idea is to apply medical skills in a sports activity format.

The students complete volunteer hours to see other options besides  physical therapy, such as working at a hospital or a nursery home.

Student Kali Stover came to speak about what she learned in the program as she prepares to go to Hiram College in the fall and study biomedical humanities.

“What we learn in class, we can tell what injuries classmates have,” Stover said.

She, along with other students, helped on the sidelines for Coventry football and boys and girls soccer in the fall, and she would like to do that at the professional level after college.

Board members Dave Andrews, Robert Wohlgamuth and LeeAnn Nicols all either had children or knew people who went through the class in years past, and all came away with success stories when they went to college and entered the work world.

Other Action

• Principal Mike Kaschak congratulated Paige Kitchen, Kaitlyn Kraus, Jessica Heard and Carrie Krise, who qualified for the DECA International Career Development Conference national event for their paper submission. The results from nationals will be given at the next meeting.
• Superintendent James Brown said the enrollment for next year will break this year’s record. PLCC has 215 seniors graduating, and 319 are currently enrolled for next year.
• The students of the month were: Coventry junior Brock Brown, programming and software development; Springfield senior Mike Chapman, building trades; Manchester junior Abby Erb, healthcare academy and Green junior Aaron Harold, careers in service industries.
•  Support staff contracts were given to Lisa Clarke and Joseph Ebner for two years, and Terrence Rick and Wayne Harrison received  continuing contracts.
•  The board approved one-year contracts to 30 teachers for the 2012-13 school year.
•  Zackery McCoy was hired as a long-term substitute for $125 per day, for 41 days for the remainder of this school year. He is taking the place of Andrew Arnold, who left for military service.
•  The board approved the non-renewal of 26 adult education contracts. Brown said they are all usually re-hired when enough students  sign up in their respective areas of study.
•  The board approved a purchased service contract of $190,750 with Central Allied Enterprises for Parking Lot Paving and Renovations. Brown said this is the same company the school has used in the past. The plan is for the work to be done between June 25 and Aug. 2.
•  The board approved a one-year contract of $30,000 for Vocational Assessment Services with Career Assessment Systems, Inc. It will run from July 1 to June 30, 2013.
•  The board approved a number of new and revised Neola Board policies, regarding different areas like job position duties, records, safety issues, etc.
•  Brown said the school is running 15-second  television ads currently for adult education, and are hoping people see them. The school  tried this years ago, but Brown said they were on air at odd times at night and the school saw no benefit.

Up Next
The next board meeting is 6 p.m. May 17 at the PLCC school, 4401 Shriver Road, Uniontown.
–Andrew Adam
Associate Editor