FAIRMONT — By now it’s fairly well known that Minnesota is facing a shortage of skilled workers. With the current workforce aging and nearing retirement, there are not enough young people trained to take over jobs that will soon need to be filled. So how does society go about training people? Start in school.

A group of area superintendents meets quarterly to discuss different matters. This past week, they met to talk about Minnesota’s need to recruit and retain skilled workers. Many public schools have begun to increase their offerings of vocational courses to ensure that secondary students are provided with a quality vocational experience.

The Little Ten superintendents include those from: Fairmont Area, Glencoe-Silver Lake, Hutchinson, Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial, New Ulm, Redwood Falls, Sleepy Eye, St. James, St. Peter and Springfield.

Fairmont Area Superintendent Joe Brown recently sent a letter to state Sen. Gary Dahms, the assistant majority leader, who also serves on the E-12 Finance and E-12 Policy committees. Brown asked to add a sentence to already existing state law to allow extended time revenue for vocational classes taught outside of the traditional school day.

“It’s only one sentence that’s being added, but that will be crucial for not just our school district, but for the state of Minnesota because it’s really going to promote kids,” Brown said.

Brown has been working with state Rep. Peggy Bennett, R-Albert Lea, who serves as the vice chairwoman of the Education Finance Committee in the Minnesota House. Bennett has agreed to support the legislation in upcoming session.

“Fairmont Area Schools has been expanding our vocational program because we know that Minnesota needs more skilled workers,” Brown said. “We’ve implemented the Ag Academy, the Welding Academy and we’re trying to increase our construction trades program. But a lot of our students don’t have time to take these classes during the regular school day.”

He went on to explain that many students’ class schedules are filled with required classes or a foreign language, band, choir or orchestra, and there’s no time to take vocational classes in the normal school day.

“What this would do is that when we would have a vocational class that’s either taught in the evening or on Saturday or in the summer, we would generate state aid,” Brown said.

Currently, schools only generate state aid for students who are there during the regular school day. For classes offered on Saturdays, such as welding, or during the summer, a school district takes money out of its general fund, or it charges the students for it.

“Passage of this legislation would allow high schools to generate state aid for classes taught outside of the regularly scheduled school day,” Brown explained.

He listed three reasons why the change proposed by the superintendents would not be expensive for the state:

o There are not that many schools that have vocational programs anymore.

o There are not that many students who want to take classes outside of the regular school day.

o It is challenging in some places to find people who want to teach on Saturday, in the evening or in the summer.

“All 10 superintendents agreed to support legislation for this,” Brown said.

Redwood Area Schools is in the process of building what will be between a $3.5 million to $4 million career and technical training center as an addition to the high school. The district received a $1 million donation from a local philanthropist who is supportive of the vocational trades, and the district figured out a way to come up with the rest, said Redwood Superintendent Rick Ellingworth.

“We want to look more like Fairmont when this is all done in terms of offering kids opportunities in the trades or in something other than going to college for four years” he said.

About this time next year, Ellingworth says they hope they are moved in. He reported they are staffing by hiring a business education teacher and an agriculture teacher.

“We’re modeling some of our thinking after what Fairmont is doing with the welding and being a regional center in training kids and adults,” Ellingworth said. “Our whole focus is that by day this will be available to kids and, as soon as the regular day ends and weekends and summer comes, it can be a training center for area businesses.”

“This legislation would really help us because it would offset the cost of providing training to students who are really interested and who can walk across the street and get a job if they have the right training,” he said.

Brown pointed out that when it comes down to it, public school facilities are only used 15 percent of the year (174 days times seven hours per day). Since it already costs to maintain buildings year round, it makes sense to make good use of them by opening up in the evenings, weekends and summers.