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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, ApRIl 2, 2022
Schools add auto courses as students seek trade jobs
By BRYCE DOLE
The Bulletin
Savannah Jessee has
known for years that
she wanted to become a
mechanic.
The 17-year-old junior,
who is on track to graduate
from Crook County High
School this year, grew up
riding motorcycles and dirt
bikes with her dad. She said
she enjoys hands-on work
and helping others, and after
high school, she’s heading to
Florida to attend the Motor-
cycle Mechanics Institute.
Her dream is to one day own
her own shop.
So when Jessee learned
about the high school’s new
internship at Kendall Ford
of Prineville, where students
learn about the various jobs
at a dealership, she signed up.
Alongside six other students
and dealership employees,
she starts each school day at
7:45 a.m. to learn about car
maintenance, basic mechan-
ics, changing oil, detailing
and selling cars.
“I’d rather go to work and
do something I enjoy for the
rest of my life than go to a job
that I don’t enjoy and make
more money,” Jessee said.
The internship is meant to
support a growing number of
students seeking trade jobs
post-high school instead of a
four-year college education
and helps address an ongo-
ing labor shortage in the auto
industry.
The program’s goal is to
teach aspects of the whole
industry. Working with pro-
fessionals, the students rotate
to a new specialty every two
weeks. When they’re fin-
ished, they will receive a cer-
tificate that will allow them a
head start as a master techni-
cian in the auto industry.
At least two rural school
districts in central Oregon
are starting new auto-focused
courses to accommodate the
demand among students for
trade jobs and provide stu-
dents with alternative routes
to four-year colleges that sad-
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Crook County High School students, from left, Lucas Teskey and Wyatt Hammack work with express manager Trace Robison as
they service a vehicle at the Kendall Ford of Prineville auto dealership.
dle many students with over-
whelming debt.
Nationwide surveys por-
tray a downward trend in col-
lege enrollment due to the
pandemic. According to a
November 2021 survey by
the ECMC Group, a Min-
neapolis nonprofit that pro-
vides financial tools and ser-
vices and career education
and other programs for stu-
dents, the number of high
school students considering
four-year higher education
has declined since the pan-
demic started, dropping from
71% to 48%.
Ryan Cochran, the career
and technical education
workforce
development
coordinator at Crook County
High School, said roughly
55% of the school’s students
are now choosing to pursue
trade jobs over college, and
he said that number is only
growing.
‘I’d RATHER GO TO WORK ANd
dO SOMETHING I ENJOy FOR
THE REST OF My lIFE THAN GO
TO A JOB THAT I dON’T ENJOy
ANd MAKE MORE MONEy.’
Savannah Jessee | 17-year-old junior who is on track
to graduate from Crook County High School this year
“We’re in that upswing
right now where (trade jobs)
are pretty hot,” Cochran said.
Robert
Durfee,
the
regional manager for Ken-
dall Auto Group, also said
that with college enrollment
declining, “trades are becom-
ing more and more import-
ant.” To help propel the pro-
gram at Crook County High
School, Kendall is covering
costs of equipment, which
typically soars into thousands
of dollars. It is also providing
space for the course, employ-
ees to mentor students and an
old Ford truck the students
will fix up and sell. Program
graduates also have poten-
tial to get hired at the deal-
ership. In a region that has
become a widely sought out
workplace destination, caus-
ing home prices to spike and
greater employment compe-
tition, Durfee sees hiring stu-
dents through the course as a
critical way to support local
families.
“We’re helping. We’re
giving back,” he said. “That’s
the plan.”
In Jefferson County, the
school district obtained
$125,000 in state grant fund-
ing in February for a simi-
lar automotive class, accord-
ing to Melinda Boyle, the
director of curriculum and
instruction for the district.
The funds will go toward a
new course that the district’s
two high schools hope to
start next fall. Students in the
course will learn how to con-
duct basic auto care, main-
tenance, oil changes, brake
services, bookkeeping and
much more.
The program was pro-
posed by tribal officials from
the Confederated Tribes of
Warm Springs who wanted
programs that support future
career opportunities for stu-
dents. Among those who
pushed for the program was
Val Switzler, the general
manager for the tribes’ edu-
cation administration.
A need for auto workers
opened up on the reserva-
tion after the closure of the
tribes’ own motor pool — an
in-house facility where tribal
enterprises could receive
vehicle repairs for govern-
ment cars and buses, Boyle
said.
Indigenous communities
in Oregon, too, have strug-
gled to connect students with
four-year colleges. A recent
report from the Oregon
Higher Education Coordinat-
ing Commission showed that
88% of ninth-grade Native
American and Alaska Native
students surveyed did not get
a college degree or certificate
within six years of their high
school graduation, compared
to 77% for white students.
Boyle said career and
technical education enroll-
ment is increasing, but
stopped short of saying this
was a recent phenomenon.
“I think students are looking
for those higher wage and
high-demand career path-
ways,” she said.
Jefferson County School
District
spokesperson
Joey Prechtl said students
involved in such programs
are performing better aca-
demically, which follows
statewide trends.
Wyatt
Hammack,
a
17-year-old junior at Crook
County High School, is
among the students pursu-
ing his dream through the
Kendall internship. He grew
up working on cars with
his brother and dad. When
the opportunity to take the
new course came along, he
thought to himself, “This
could be my whole life.”
Since Monday, Hammack
has been draining oil, chang-
ing oil filters, checking trans-
missions and taking off tires.
By the end of the course, he
hopes to be hired as a master
technician at Kendall.
“I want to be as full of
information and wisdom that
they can give me,” he said.
help bring stability to the lives of the lesser known
victims of the opioid crisis, America’s children.
First, it takes time.
Right now, more than 40 volunteers spend
4,000 plus hours a year speaking out for the
best interests of the more than 120 children
they serve here in Clatsop County. To give every
child one caring, constant adult in their lives, we
need to more than double the number of CASA
volunteers. We know we can do it.
If I could say thank you to every foster fami-
ly, child welfare professional, judge and CASA
volunteer who dedicate their life to children and
youth in the foster care system, I would. And,
even then, it would insufficiently cover the depth
and gratitude due them for their unwavering
dedication, selflessness, and countless sacrifices
day in and day out – to support children who have
experienced abuse or neglect. Without you, these
children might have no one to depend on. They’d
be left with nothing more than a constant pa-
rade of strangers cycling in and out of their lives,
asking the same questions and ticking the same
boxes before disappearing, only to be replaced
by the next.
Imagine experiencing this loneliness
and chaos…on top of losing
your parents.
It’s a loss too terrible for anyone
to bear, much less a child.
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and
today, I am reaching out about a REAL and
PRESENT crisis affecting children here in Clatsop
County and across the nation. If you read the pa-
per or watch the news, you know the magnitude
of the opioid epidemic in this country. With the
additional devastation of COVID-19, our commu-
nities are facing an uphill battle. This is especially
true in small communities like ours. While law-
makers, public officials, and the media focus on
these public health crises, we focus on the silent
victims—the children.
Of course, parental substance abuse is not new,
and we have always advocated for the best inter-
ests of children who have experienced abuse or
neglect because of a parent’s addiction. But over
the last six years, the number of children in foster
care across the country has risen 8 percent, a rise
that public health officials, analyzing other data
trends, increasingly attribute to the growing use of
opioids. Sadly, we have expected this number
to continue to climb. And this was before the
COVID-19 Pandemic – these numbers are ex-
pected to increase dramatically because of family
isolation, anxiety/stress, lack of access to treat-
ment and economic uncertainty.
If this breaks your heart, you are not alone.
It breaks mine, too. And what’s worse is that this
wave will not peak any time soon. If we want to
save our children, we have to act now. Which
means our role—and yours—has never been
more important.
I am writing to ask for your assistance. As an
important part of the CASA movement, you can
Second, it takes money.
The 4,000-plus hours our volunteers donate
each year in our community is a bargain, but
it is not free. What makes our volunteers so
effective is the investment that we make in their
ongoing training and supervision. The issues
surrounding opioid addiction are complex. We
need to create new trainings and new materials
on those issues for all our volunteers. Given the
return—to the children in foster care and to our
society—we are committed to partnering with
donors and investors who can help us make
that investment. Please consider a tax-deduct-
ible donation to our program. Donations can be
made at www.clatsopcasa.org or mailed to: PO
BOX 514, Astoria, OR 97103.
Third, it takes HEART.
It takes heart to see a child in need and stop
to help. It takes heart to stay for as long as you
are needed—for that child and every child—day
after day, year after year, in good times and
bad. Those who do this work, whether they are
volunteers, staff members, or donors, have the
heart to see, to stop, and to stay.
Perhaps you do, too. And if you do, this is an in-
vitation to join us, in whatever capacity you can.
Not even one of us has the power to change
these children’s past— what they have seen,
what they have done, what they have suffered.
Every one of us has the power to change
their future. All it takes is the heart to do so.
I can tell you that whatever dollars you invest
will yield an outsized return in that most valuable
currency of all, time.
I can promise you that wherever that time is
spent—in court, on the phone, at a hospital, in a
high school gymnasium or backyard sandbox—
you will be giving children all the time they need
to learn that it’s safe to hope, to trust, to believe,
and to move forward.
On behalf of all of us — thank you.
Sincerely,
Nakesha Womble
Executive Director, Clatsop
CASA Program, Inc.