Busloads of Portage Township Schools students will pour into local manufacturers’ sites for a look at possible careers, a school official said.
The district also is applying for almost $700,000 from the state-sponsored Common School Loan fund to beef up its technology in key areas.
At the Sept. 21 school board meeting, Superintendent Richard Weigel said the district will work with the Center for Workforce Innovation to host 200 students for World Manufacturing Day Oct. 14.
The students will visit area manufacturers to observe their operations and get an idea for what is involved in working in those fields, Weigel said. The students also will get contact cards, similar to business cards, with their names and contact information on them to leave with potential employers.
Afterward, the students will travel to Ivy Tech Community College to learn more about how to get training to work in those fields, Weigel told the board.
The board also learned the details of the district’s application to the Common School Loan fund for $698,800 for a number of technology programs. The district is eligible to borrow up to $789,700 at a 1 percent interest rate, but officials decided to stick to a smaller amount, said Linda Williams, director of Title 1 and special student programs for the district.
“We are always fiscally responsible, so we just wanted to apply for what we needed,” she said.
The biggest portion, about $452,900, will go toward replacing computer labs in the district’s elementary buildings and some of the specialty computing labs, such as those used in business, art and publication programs, at the high school, Williams said.
“Some of those computer labs are over 10 years old,” she said. “In the computer world, that’s a very long time for a device.”
Another portion of the loan will go to the arts department for iPads and associated software and to the broadcast journalism program.
The loan request and the project list has to go before the Indiana State Board of Education for approval, but the district, generally, has received the amounts it’s sought, Williams said.
The district should learn if its application has been approved in November.
Michael Gonzalez is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.