The best way to ensure that students stay on an educational pathway is to make sure that the experience is as seamless as possible from high school to college and beyond. An event held recently in the San Diego area brought stakeholders from all three groups together to begin what will become an ongoing dialogue.
The Teachers’ Automotive Summit was held December 8 at Miramar College, and was hosted by Jonathan Kropp, CETI Deputy Sector Navigator in the San Diego/Imperial Region. Nearly 40 people attended spanning high schools, colleges, and automotive businesses in the region. The event’s goal was to organize collaboration among these groups and open lines of communication for future programs.
To that end, the group plans to create a LinkedIn group and Dropbox space for communication and planning. It is also going to explore what steps would be necessary to establish a more formal regional advisory committee.
Speakers at the event included:
- Dale Snow of Mossy Automotive Group on workforce needs and the future of their industry.
- Tom Brennan of the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) on training, changes, and information related to accreditation
- Nhu Tran of San Diego Gas & Electric on the “Power Your Drive Program” and alternative fuel vehicles
- Jewel Clark from the San Diego Office of Education on the ePortal
Greg Quirin of the San Diego Unified School District said the summit was a long time coming. He supports several high school automotive programs and said it’s difficult to keep up with changes at colleges and in the industry; the newly-formed lines of communication will help solve that problem.
“We have been trying to organize a San Diego automotive group for several years now to collaborate and share ideas,” Quirin said. “We are all struggling to keep the true hands-on related occupational training and education programs in our high schools and colleges.”
Working together to link students to training resources is another key effort the group is undertaking, noted Brad McCombs, Automotive Program Coordinator at Cuyamaca College. “We need to work together. There is a powerful social benefit to meeting with our peers.”
