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Career Center paves way with student resource guide

A list of available programs is a fine thing for an educational outlet to offer.

But a student planning guide — with additional details including successful alumni, photos, certifications, and other information — is a better reference.

Warren County Career Center used to hand out course catalogs to prospective students. Those told students what classes are available. The new student guide tells them “why they should come to the (Warren County) Career Center and what the benefits are,” according to Principal Jim Evers.

The career center has developed a draft of such a guide and Warren County School District officials plan to offer the same.

Evers said the old course catalog listed the available programs and gave a brief description of each.

In the career center’s planning guide, each course has two dedicated pages showing the requirements, possible careers, a quick explanation of the program, certifications that are offered through the course, photos, and more.

For example, under health and medical assisting services, the employment opportunities are: nurse aide, home health aide, health unit coordinator, and moving on to specialized training.

Areas of study include anatomy and physiology; medical terminology; legal and ethical aspects; and communication. Additional work will focus on professionalism; career exploration; certifications; medical assisting skills; and clinical and co-op experiences.

Certifications include: health care provided CPR/AED; health care OSHA; direct care worker; HealthMart safety; Heart Saver first aid; and certified nurse assistant.

“It’s a guide,” Supervisor of Secondary Education Eric Mineweaser said. “What do I want to do in the future?”

Both the career center and district guides will eventually include a sampling of successful graduates in each field. In order to create that list, officials are hoping graduates who are working in the fields they studied at Warren County schools will reach out. “We’re looking for help,” Mineweaser said. “Alumni wanted.”

“People that are excelling in their career field,” Warren-Forest Hi-Ed Council School to Work Coordinator Jesse DeLoof said.

Hopefully, students will “see the alumni and say, ‘That’s cool,'” Mineweaser said.

Graduates who would like to be included in the guide may contact Evers at (814) 726-1260 or Mineweaser at (814) 723-6900.

The career center’s guide is in the final stages and could be available soon.

The district is just starting down the path to creating a guide.

Eventually, every student in the district will receive both the career center and district student planning guides, Mineweaser said. “We want to focus on career development. We’ll give them to incoming freshmen and (high school) students who are new to the district.”

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