Not your grandfather’s Vo-Tech

If you ask a stranger on the street why high school students go to MCTI, chances are pretty good they will tell you it’s because the kid can’t make it at the high school or they don’t want to go to college. Beep. Wrong.

Monroe Career and Technical Institute is just what the name suggests. It prepares students for real-world careers and very highly skilled technical jobs.

“Many of our students graduate with a semester’s worth of college credits,” said Dennis Virga, supervisor of curriculum and instruction at MCTI. “That is at no additional cost to the families.”

MCTI serves all of the Monroe County school districts, as well as private schools and home-schooled students. In some cases the districts cover the cost and in some the students pay tuition, depending on the situation.

Tenth- through 12th-grade students split their day between their district high school and MCTI.

Ninth-grade students attend a full-day session at MCTI.

“The full-day gives ninth-graders an opportunity to start high school with smaller class sizes and more personalized instruction,” Donna Yozwiak said.

Yozwiak, an incoming school board director for Pleasant Valley district, was a guidance counselor to the MCTI students for 18 years at Pleasant Valley and currently serves as a substitute teacher in all disciplines at MCTI.

MCTI offers 23 programs of hands-on instruction that provide certifications in the field of study.

“I believe that MCTI is the best school for a student going into a technical field,” said L.J. Amaru, a ninth-grader from Pleasant Valley. “It prepares you for what you are going to be getting into.”

Amaru is a graphic arts student and he is glad he chose MCTI.

“There is no doubt that I have found a home here,” he said. “The faculty are some of the nicest people I have ever met.”

“We are providing them opportunities to get jobs in areas where they are needed,” said Carolyn Shegelski, director of MCTI. “We have identified where there is a lack of skilled labor. Skills equal jobs.”

Job potential

All of MCTI curricula are approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Bureau of Career and Technical Education.

A number of programs center on the automotive industry, both diesel and gasoline powered. The diesel technology class is one of the most popular classes and always at full capacity, Virga said.

“We had a student who graduated diesel technology and got a job with Federal Express making $45,000 a year,” Shegelski said. “He even got a sign-on bonus when he was hired.”

“One of the information technology students is making over $100,000 a year at a, well we will just say, a local pharmaceutical company,” she added.

“The workforce in America needs students who are educated in the career and technical fields,” Yozwiak said. “The education provided by MCTI remains excellent. The teachers and the staff consistently are trained in the most current technologies in their fields.”

MCTI prides itself on keeping up-to-date with technology and equipment.

As an example, the Precision Machining program recently acquired a CNC Milling Machine. The machine mills metals primarily, but can mill composite materials as well.

“This would be what people used to refer to as metal shop,” Virga said. “These students are learning to write code to program the machine. Much different from years ago.”

The 23 programs include the automotive technology and information technology programs, which are very popular. Some of the other more popular programs include cosmetology, criminal justice, electronic technology, culinary arts and the health professions.

Students also take classes in other hands-on professions, such as welding, plumbing, HVAC and electrical technology.

More choices

“As the community finds out more and more of what we have available, the higher our enrollment is,” Shegelski said. “And because of our dual enrollment with Penn College, there are three choices our students have at graduation. They can go directly to work, they can go on to college or they can do both.”

“A good example is our certified nursing program,” Shegelski said. “Some will make a career out of it, some will work 11 to 14 hours a week while going to college to earn their degree, and others will go right into college and build on what they learned here.”

“What is most important is that they are ready for what comes next.”

“Kunkletown resident Nicole Kuehner is a 10th-grader and is in the horticulture program. Kuehner chose MCTI because she couldn’t see herself tied to a desk all day.

“I am an active problem solver,” Kuehner said. “I just couldn’t be sitting at a desk when I could be doing something. I grew up on a family farm, so agriculture has always been a part of my life.”

Kuehner hopes that upon graduation she will be selected into the college internship program at Longwood Gardens, where she would get a higher level of hands-on experience as well as college credits.

It is also a myth that people assume that MCTI students can’t take AP classes,” Yozwiak said. “Students come to MCTI from their sending districts for half day and attend their home district school for their academics. The classes at MCTI satisfy the electives.”

For the 2016-17 school year there were 67 students enrolled in the Penn College dual enrollment partnership. These students earned a total of 210 college credits and saved their families $112,560 in tuition.

“There is no wiggle room in these schedules. These students are accommodated,” Yozwiak said. “Even students who are involved in athletics will get a special bus to get them to away games.”

MCTI students participate in the SOAR programs of study.

Students Occupationally and Academically Ready prepares students for college and careers in a diverse, high-performing workforce.

The SOAR program has identified what are known as high priority occupations. The HPOs are a list of occupations which are in high demand by employers, require a certain level of skills and are most likely to provide family sustaining wages.

Of the 23 programs offered by MCTI, 20 have been identified as high priority occupations.

“We have found that many of our students just don’t like a purely academic environment, but rather it is the skills that interest them,” Shegelski said. “Here they have the opportunity to learn transferrable skills and a good foundation to build on.”

On the other hand, Shegelski added that for students who decide that MCTI might not be for them, they can easily transfer back full-time to their district’s high school.

In the past vocational and technical schools were thought to be the last chance for students who couldn’t or didn’t want to make it at the district’s high schools, and that is no longer the role that schools such as MCTI play in the education process.

“We have some students who come here and fail, it’s inevitable,” Shegelski said. “But we also have students who might not have made it in a primarily academic setting who thrive here.”