Advisor calls for more CATE support at ECHS
By BRENDA SOMMER news1@leader-news.com

El Campo ISD heard an impassioned plea that more students be encouraged to use the district's Career and Technical Education department.

Lance Lurker, who is on the CATE advisory council, addressed the board Tuesday, telling them he felt the program was under-utilized.

"I think our counselors ... are missing the boat with our Career Technology Center," Lurker said. "They do not stress the use of the facility at all."

He spoke of the need for skilled trades in the area and around the region, and gave an example of a local company that had to go to Canada to recruit welders. He also mentioned a variety of skilled trades, including those in health care and automotive technology.

"Can't some of that stuff be targeted through our Career Technology Center?" Lurker asked the board.

He said a fear he'd long had that students were being discouraged from skilled trades was recently confirmed when an El Campo High senior told him his experience in trying to enter the automotive technology track as a junior.

"It appalled me and astounded me to find out our counselors told him he was too smart to be in auto tech," Lurker said. "That is unacceptable to me."

But Superintendent Mark Pool said to the best of his knowledge, counselors take no such position.

"I don't think so ... that one case may have been true, I don't know," Pool said Thursday. "(ECHS Principal Rich) DuBroc talked with counselors about Mr. Lurker's concerns, and they assured him they don't steer them away. I don't think they encourage or discourage them."

He did say there have been changes in the counseling staff, and "it could've been someone no longer with us."

Lurker said he's asked for statistics on what careers or educational paths ECHS students pursue once they leave school, but those numbers hadn't been provided by the district. He believes only a low percentage of students attain a college degree.

Pool noted the difficulty of tracking former students.

"We have not had real good data in that area - it's hard to do," he said.

The district recently subscribed to a computerized program that tracks students for several years after graduation.

"We just started that and hope to have some good data in the next year," he said.

Pool did have some tracking information from Wharton County Junior College on the class of 2005. It states 38.5 percent of 2005 ECHS graduates attended that junior college, while 3 percent attended the University of Texas at Austin. Some 2.3 percent enrolled at Sam Houston State University, and 8.3 percent signed on at other 4-year universities. Another 5.3 percent were attending a 2-year institution, but data was not found on 42.6 percent of the class of 2005.

Overall, Pool said he thinks the district does a "pretty good job" of encouraging students to pursue the skilled trades.

"But it mainly comes from those departments," he said. "They start as early as 7th or 8th grade. Instructors will go meet with all middle school students, just to tell them what it's all about."