The next new program at Warren County Career Center could prepare students for careers in early childhood development.

It could do so as soon as next year.

“This goes back a few years,” Warren County School District Director of Administrative Support Services Gary Weber said. “Early Childhood Development came up at that time as one of the top three programs that we were looking to add at the career center.”

“This is a need in the county,” Weber said. “Long-term… we’ve talked a lot about looking at early childhood, because we need people in the district as well.”

“As we’re having a need for people in the district, I think this program could help,” he said.

The program would prepare “our students to do anything from daycare programming through schooling for early childhood teaching,” he said. “Depending on what they choose to do, this program can guide them.”

“I can see quite an array of interest in this program,” Superintendent Amy Stewart said.

Some outcomes would be mostly or wholly satisfied by the career center curriculum. Students with other goals, like becoming an elementary teacher, would need to go on to post-secondary education.

“This is another arrow in the quiver in the career center for students to be able to hit the ground running,” Committee Member Joe Colosimo said.

The district has prepared the instruction for a prospective program and presented that plan to the school board’s curriculum, instruction, and technology committee on Monday.

If that plan is approved at the January meeting of the school board, the next step would be to gain state approval.

Principal “Mr. (Jim) Evers has the program ready to submit for approval at the state level in February,” Weber said.

One of the key factors for approving a new program is the level of need for skilled workers in that occupational field.

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis lists elementary school teachers, teacher assistants, and childcare workers among its lists of high-priority occupations statewide and in northwestern Pennsylvania.

The district has had a very limited pool of applicants for many of its postings, including those for elementary teachers, over the past few years.

If the district receives state approval to start the program, the next step would be to create a teaching position.

There is space available in the career center. That space may not house students younger than high-school age for a while.

“Is there any possibility that there would be a daycare operated in the career center?” Board Member Mary Passinger asked.

“Down the road, yeah, that’s a good possibility,” Weber said. “The first couple years? No.”

“Not yet,” Stewart said. “Let’s get the program out of the gate.”

If there are students who need that kind of setting to further their education, “we can utilize some of the agencies around us,” Weber said.