Rural high school students are getting a head start on career technical education through state grants supporting Iowa Western Community College.
This type of education caught the attention of Dan Kinney when he became college’s president in 2020, taking the reins from his father. Prior to that, Kinney spent 11 years at the helm Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge.
“I saw a need in the region,” Kinney said of southwest Iowa.
In the last three years, the college has received three $1 million grants from the state’s Career Academy Incentive Fund to support career and technical education programs for high school juniors and seniors.
“We’ve been fortunate,” Kinney said. “We’ve written three grant applications and gotten three. It allows us to start offering current career technical education programs in conjunction with rural high schools in high demand, high paying jobs. And, it’s built around jobs in the community.”
Local businesses are involved in this program through their input on the kinds of jobs and skills they need, Kinney said.
Rural schools were targeted because access to this type of training at Iowa Western may have been too far for these students to travel, Kinney said. High schools in Council Bluffs have their own training opportunities, too.
The first grant went to the Missouri Valley Community School District. Juniors and seniors there are taking part in the Buss Center Career Academy, learning subject such as welding, construction technology and precise agriculture.
The second grant created the Southwest Iowa Technical Career Hub, or SWITCH, located in the East Mills Community School District. SWITCH has memoranda of understanding with six school districts for Iowa Western certificate programs.
The career academy grant aims to better prepare high school students for college, postsecondary training, and the workforce, SWITCH Director Kattie Lewis told The Nonpareil. “Additionally, IWCC and East Mills jointly employ SWITCH’s director, who also serves as a career coach for IWCC, underscoring both stakeholders’ commitment to educational opportunities in southwest Iowa.”
Lewis said this partnership with Iowa Western came about when East Mills was working on a $22 million bond to move from two campuses into one. The school district met with the college and others to discuss converting the East Mills elementary building into a career and technical education center.
“The concept helped the bond pass on the first try, and East Mills began to fulfill its promise to the community — the vacated building would be used as a career academy once the K-12 campus was complete,” Lewis said. “The promise is being fulfilled by East Mills just shy of two years after the bond vote.”
Among the subjects taught at SWITCH are preparations for a Certified Nursing Assistant credential. A course for next year will involve heating and air conditioning training, Kinney said. Lewis said the academy launched Aug. 19.
Most recently, Iowa Western received its third $1 million grant to fund a new regional center in Glenwood, which will offer five southwest Iowa school districts access to career academies in cybersecurity, mass digital communications, robotics and precision agriculture. The program is called The Innovation Center.
“This is new for Glenwood,” said Nicole Kooiker, interim superintendent for the Glenwood Community School District. “This is more white-collar jobs.”
The Innovation Center will begin teaching inside a new school administration building when it’s completed, possibly in the spring of 2026, she said.
“It’s giving the kids the opportunity to look at careers they didn’t realize were there,” Kooiker said.
Kinney said there are other benefits to this type of program: It saves taxpayer dollars combining several schools instead of each having its own program. It also encourages young people to stay in the area as local jobs become available.
“It’s been great,” Kinney said of the college’s regional career academies. “More and more students are getting involved.”