DUBLIN, Ohio — In Gov. Mike DeWine's State of the State address, he announced his plan to allocate more dollars to early career technical programs statewide. Each program is catered to students' unique job requirements.

What You Need To Know

  • Spectrum News shadowed a Workforce Ready Career Based Intervention Program offered by Dublin City Schools

  • This is a program that focuses on helping students identify careers of interest to them

  • They can earn high school graduation credits by working part-time jobs

Spectrum News shadowed a Workforce Ready Career Based Intervention Program offered by Dublin City Schools. 
 
Robin Stacy, a Workforce Ready CBI Satellite Program Coordinator with Dublin City Schools, teaches students how to be prepared for future careers.

"These programs emphasize what it takes to really be in a career, as well as offer students the opportunity to explore, explore a variety of careers, and see what they're really about," Stacy said. 

This is a program that focuses on helping students identify careers of interest to them. They can earn high school graduation credits by working part-time jobs. Each morning, classes begin differently. Sometimes, they can begin with an activity that teaches them about life skills. 

Once class has been completed, students can head to their part-time jobs. 

"I have all kinds of employers who talk to my students. We go on field trips to go out into industry," Stacy said. 
 
Jonathon Green is a student involved in the program and has a chance to work with an engineering company called Air Force One: HVAC Solutions.

"I'm doing it for engineering reasons, so I want to become an engineer when I'm older. I think if you maybe you're not inclined to college indefinitely, this is a great opportunity," Green said. 

Crystal Martinez graduated from the program last year and now is a preschool teacher at Tolls Technical Career Center. Martinez said without the career-based intervention program she would not have been able to find her life passion. 

"I really wasn't a person for school. But when I got into my program for the workforce ready," Martinez said. "I kind of started to enjoy it more. Because even though I still have some school work, I still have to go to work and that's one of the things that I like to do. I like working."

 Stacy says programs like these could help the worker shortage in Ohio, but it could take time. 
 
"That's certainly the goal," Stacy said. "I think it will. I think, you know, everything takes time to kind of make that role. So hopefully we'll stay in this vein long enough so that we can see and reap the benefits of what we're selling."

DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted continue to tour career technical programs across Ohio. This week,Husted toured Ashland County West-Holmes Career Technical Center to learn about how they would expand their programs using the career technical education funding proposed by DeWine. 

The Ohio House is still working through its version of the budget, then it goes to the Senate for its review. It will be a few months before we know if the funding DeWine hopes to give to career tech education is finalized.