HIBBING â Filling a skills gap among workers from across Minnesota, especially in rural parts of the state, has been growing focus of high school and local business on the Iron Range with legislative funding to forge ahead on their initiatives.
For school districts, that means challenging the traditional curriculum and providing students with a more academy-based model that emphasizes skills training as an alternate path from the four-year degrees once prioritized by educators.
Hibbing High Schoolâs Bluejacket Academy has worked to do just that and was one of six schools this year awarded with a Youth Skills Training Grant from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. The agency created the Youth Skills Training program through a 2017 state law that was designed to create and provide employment training for students 16 and older in high-growth and high-demand occupations.
In 2018, then Winona Senior High School student Jania Ward and industrial tech teacher Kevin Martin took part in the chamber’s REACH program, giving students hands-on experience in in-demand fields. The chamber recently won a grant to expand the program. Career program wins more funding (3/10/2021)
The Winona Area Chamber of Commerce and its partners recently received a state grant to support a program that connects high school students with local, in-demand jobs. Program leaders plan to use the funding for expanding the opportunities students have to gain hands-on experience at area businesses. They also plan to put the grant toward developing those opportunities for the first time in the Lewiston-Altura and Wabasha-Kellogg schools.