City aims for arts & tech school
One in five West Palm Beach residents is poor.
Nearly one in three West Palm Beach children, younger than 18, live in poverty.
More than one in 10 adults working full-time also live below the poverty line.
Those are among the numbers compiled as part of a study to determine whether the city would be an appropriate community for a National Center for Arts and Technology school.
NCATs are innovative schools aimed at reaching students through arts and technology training that shapes their thinking and prepares them for jobs. They are based on a program developed by Pittsburgh-based Manchester Bidwell Corp.
According to Jon Ward, executive director of West Palm’s Community Redevelopment Agency, the city, with Mayor Jeri Muoio’s encouragement, has applied for the right to establish an NCAT here. Part of that requirement is demonstrating that the city has the kind of economic foundation in which such a school would thrive.
The initial research by the NCAT people is both disheartening and encouraging.
Disheartening, because their research has confirmed that despite the city’s years of efforts at addressing poverty, the numbers above show it is far from succeeding. As is true elsewhere in the U.S., poverty is disproportionately high among West Palm Beach minorities and people with lower levels of education.
Encouraging, because that and the fact the local job market has sectors hungry for employees such a school could provide, mean the school would meet a need here.
The study showed the biggest opportunity for job training is in culinary arts, because there are more than 300 job openings annually and few schools for it, specially since Lincoln Culinary Institute closed. Other fields with lots of openings and ripe for training programs: carpentry, electricians, plumbing, licensed practical nursing, aircraft mechanics and service technicians, automotive service technicians and psychiatric technicians.
“It appears there’s a viable need here,” Ward said.
The next step, he said, would be to determine where the school would go, how to fund it and to hire an executive director to get the program off the ground.