JERSEY SHORE — Changes may be coming to the Career and Technical Education (CTE) program at Jersey Shore High School next year if the program that was proposed by David Bittner, director of DTE, at this week’s school board meeting.

The changes, which would offer students a wider variety of programs, were prompted by the goals of the district’s CTE program, Bittner said.

“It is the goal of the CTE programs and one of the components of the mission of the Jersey Shore Area School District to meet the demands of the local workforce. The number one industry in our area is health care by size and it’s the number two in job growth in central Pennsylvania,” Bittner said, citing statistics from the central Pennsylvania Workforce Development Board, which is used by the program to drive their decisions.

“We also desire to fulfill the interests of our student body” Bittner said.

A survey of the current sophomore class of 150, Bittner said, revealed that 30 of them chose Health Sciences over all other career pathway options.

“We currently don’t have a full CTE program to fulfill that level of interest, hence these proposed changes are coming to you for consideration,” he said.

“It’s our mission and goal to offer a wider variety of programs. We are currently on an improvement plan for our CTE programs for our lack of non-traditional enrollment. That indicator is a federal indicator and its definition at the state level is males enrolled in traditionally female based occupations and vice versa,” he said.

Jersey Shore’s current non-traditional enrollment stands at 2.17% and Bittner stated that the goal is to improve that by 10%.

“Hopefully by offering a wider variety of programs fulfilling their interests and meeting the demands of the workforce, we can meet our improvement plan goals,” he said.

Changes in the program offered by Bittner include consolidating some of the construction based CTE programs to make room for health and medical assisting programs.

A letter of retirement from the current construction trades instructor was approved later in the meeting, which frees up a position within the CTE for an instructor in the health careers program.

Bittner provided a timeline of what needs to be done to move the proposal forward, which includes approval by the board of the plan at their March 11 meeting. If that happens, then staff openings could be advertised April 1. The changes also need to have approval by the state’s Department of Education by May 31. Other deadlines include the program relocation and setup in June, approval of the new CTE instructor in July, ordering program supplies by July 15, with the new program beginning the first day of the 2024-25 school year on Aug. 22.

Members of the board questioned the cost of adding the new program

For the medical assisting program, Bittner proposed $11,650 for the first year and by consolidating some of the other CTE programs, he said that a budget savings of about $6,400 should be opened up. Student capacity for the new health careers program is 60, but Bittner noted that is not expected to be realized during the first year.

Career and Technical Education also receives a subsidy from the state. Currently the state reimburses districts $1,004 for each student in the program. That amount is in addition to the Basic Education subsidy that the district already receives for each student.

“I’m doing my best to fund these programs without coming to you asking for more budgetary funding,” Bittner said.

“I’m looking at how do I make sure our programs are fully enrolled? How do I make sure we’re accurately reporting our data and submitting corrections? I also wanted to inform you that we do get federal and state grant monies to support these programs. Any possible expenditures that are submitted from the instructors, I first look, can I pay for it with a grant,” he said.

In other business at the meeting, the board approved the school year calendar for the next school year and the high school course catalog.

Under personnel, the following persons were hired for the positions and rates of pay listed if applicable: Eric Hess, fitness center supervisor, $2,781; Seth Hensler, assistant boys’ tennis coach, $2,645 stipend; Darrin Bischof, head middle school girls’ soccer coach, $2,875 stipend; and Mathew Watkins, volunteer baseball coach.

Letters of resignation were accepted from Jason Whitman, middle school football coach and Nicolette Russell, head middle school cheerleading coach.

The board also accepted letters of retirement from Laurette Robinson, first grade teacher at Salladasburg Elementary after 31 years of service and John Jarrett, CTE Construction teach with 21 years of service.

The next meeting will be at 7 p.m. Monday, March 11, at the District Administration Building, 175 A&P Drive.