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CALIFORNIA CITY - Looking for new means of preparing students for future
employment, California City High School is endeavoring to establish a career
technical education program focused on the growing renewable energy industry.
The school is seeking to take advantage of its proximity to the burgeoning
wind energy fields of eastern Kern County. Renewable energy is an industry
that has an identified immediate need for trained workers, school officials
said.
Cal City High principal Harold Roney attended a Cerro Coso Community College employment fair to investigate demand for employees and "found out it was pretty intense in respect to manpower," he said.
He teamed up with the college's Career Technical Education program, which has recently begun offering courses focused on the renewable energy industry, to develop a similar career path program for high school students.
The wind energy industry, a long-time feature on the local landscape, has seen growing interest in recent years as renewable energy production has become more popular. This has led to a shortage of people trained as equipment operators, in installation and maintenance of the towers and their associated power grids.
The boom time for wind energy has even led to a need in transporting the massive structures to the hillside sites where they are installed, Roney said.
At this point, the nascent program consists of a renewable energy "boot camp," a series of courses taught at Cal City High by Cerro Coso instructors.
The courses are open to high school graduates, and Mojave Unified School District grads may get priority placement in the high-demand course, Roney said.
"We are given the opportunity to have our graduates boosted to the front because of our connection," he said.
The first session of the eight-week program began last week, with classes running four nights a week, four hours at a time.
"It's very intensive," said instructor Larry Board, Cerro Coso's career technical education department chairman.
The class teaches the skills necessary for an entry-level position as a maintenance and operations technician at a wind farm, jobs that easily pay $18 to $23 per hour and have many opportunities for advancement, Board said.
"Companies are so far behind on employment right now. There is a big demand for wind technicians, not just in California but globally," he said.
Students study electronics, hydraulics, the computer systems used by wind turbines, safety regulations and even first aid and CPR certification.
In addition, students receive experience in climbing the massive towers to see if they can handle the physical rigors of the job.
"You've got to find out whether you like heights or not," Board said of the preparations for working 250 feet in the air on a tower placed in very windy conditions.
"That thing moves around quite a bit."
The final three days of the course focus on résumé preparation and interviewing skills, as well, Board said.
The first session sold out its allotment of 15 students, at a cost to students of $1,000.
Because officials discovered that that amount barely covered the costs of providing the course, and due to the community college's budget problems, the price of the course has risen to $2,000.
The boot camp is the community education companion to Cerro Coso's year-long program at the campus in Ridgecrest.
School officials eventually plan to incorporate renewable energy industry-related courses into the high school curriculum as electives. The program would be similar to existing vocational education offerings, although tailored to the industry's needs, Roney said.
The courses in wind turbine technology would prepare high school students to jump straight into the boot camp courses following graduation, he said.
"That's a definite big push for our school," he said.
Renewable energy technology was included in the district's three-year plan for career technical education, approved Jan. 27 by the Mojave Unified School District board.
However, in a recent survey of students' career area interests conducted by the district to help develop the plan, renewable energy did not make the cut.
Roney said the problem was that students thought the program was coming anyway, so they didn't need to vote for it.
agatlin@avpress.com
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