Daniel Mears / The Detroit News Nick Harrington, 16, adjusts a fixture that connects to a robotic arm that will hold and light a torch used in making screwdrivers. He works in Pinckney High robotics lab.

Livingston:

Students can earn college credits for tech courses

By Mark Hornbeck / Detroit News Lansing Bureau

    PINCKNEY — Teacher Sean Hickman can’t understand why the enrollment numbers are down in his robotics class.

    He has 56 students in his program at Pinckney High School, down from 68 last year and 74 in 1999.

    “It’s amazing,” he said. “Maybe the word ‘manufacturing’ turns kids off.

    “We have a wonderful lab here and kids can get hands-on experience in an area where there are job opportunities.”

    Mark Callanan, a junior in the program, figures students are scared away because they think the course is too difficult.

    “Kids come into our lab, they have no idea what it is,” Callanan said. “They don’t know that this program gives you a lot of job skills.”

    He said his experience has inspired him to consider going into robotics at Washtenaw Community College or Lake Superior State University.

    Robotics is only one course in the broad and varied Livingston Applied Technology Education Consortium.

    Some 3,500 students are trained in a variety of programs from auto mechanics and construction trades to machine technology and computer network administration. Robotics aside, enrollment has increased every year since the intermediate school district started the applied technology program 15 years ago, said Director Craig Searight.

    “The majority of our students are entering related post-secondary institutions — mostly community colleges — or jobs related to the training they received in high school,” Searight said.

    Hickman said students should be swarming to career-technical programs in Livingston County. More students should look at vocational training, rather than assume a four-year college degree is the only way to go, he said.

    “Parents in this county want their kids to go to college; there’s a big push for college prep,” he said. “College can be a $60,000-exploration project and then the kids come back and get a job in a vocational-technical area anyway.”

You can reach Mark Hornbeck at (517) 371-3660 or mhornbeck@detnews.com.-