No one knows impact Mingus Union High School consolidation may have on CTE at Valley Academy; College may be forced to halt major centralized CTE development until questions about V’ACTE’s future are answered
“When the county attorney tells me, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,’ that worries me.”
The same training opportunities offered by the College in Career and Technical Education to 120,000 residents of Yavapai County on the west side of the County is badly needed by the 73,000 residents on the east side. The west side already has a ten-year jump on CTE development and is operating one of the most advanced training facilities in Arizona, if not the nation, at the Career and Technical Education Campus at the Prescott airport. The College has dragged its feet on east side CTE development for years and a consolidation issue raised this month involving Mingus Union high school may unexpectedly sound the death knell for major future centralized College driven CTE development on the east side of the County.
Consolidation would apparently result in a new school district and it is not clear that it would encompass VACTE because of complex election issues.
In an article published July 12 in the Verde Independent and written by Bill Helm, County superintendent of Education Tim Carter said that “ Nobody anticipated that a JTED could be affected by the termination of a district.” He added that he had ““no idea” how the community’s voter-approved Joint Technical Education District would look should Cottonwood-Oak Creek and Mingus Union end up merging into one district.
Carter, who is supposed to be the expert in these matters, also is quoted by Kelm saying that “I’m not giving anybody answers. I have no answers. We’re on unchartered ground. But everyone would be impacted to some degree.” Finally, he told Mr. Helm that “We’re looking for a collective solution statewide. When the county attorney tells me, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,’ that worries me.”
What a mess!
You may read Mr. Helm’s interview with Carter by clicking here.