Butler County Career Academy Teaches Technical Skills
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When High School junior Jonathon Jones signed up for a welding class over the summer, he did not realize he was signing up for his future.
“I started to like it, cause I’m a real hands on person,” Jonathon says. “And as we got to start cutting with the torch and we started stick welding, then got up to mig welding, we started building these booths, I really started enjoying it. And I’m planning on having a future career.”
Jonathon is able to learn these skills and choose his new career thanks to the Butler County Career Academy. The BCCA offers training in numerous vocations, like nursing and mechanics. Welding is one of the newest additions to the class list.
The students in the class are putting their new skills to good use. Thirteen students, including Jonathon, helped build eight permanent welding booths in Greenville High School. The students were mainly using a mobile welding lab donated by Reid State Technical College, but Jonathon says he and his classmates needed more room to learn.
“We started to build these booths, because it would give us more room first of all. To teach more students. And it’s a different kind of welding,” Jonathon explains. “In the trailer out there, we have stick welding. And then in here, this is mig welding, which is wire fed and uses Argon gas.”
The students who complete the class will go into technical college with the equivalent of one full year of welding school. They will also leave with their National Center for Construction Education and Research certification, which gives them a huge advantage over their coworkers.
“I think they’re very excited when they learn they can do something else with their hands, besides play video games,” Reid State Welding Instructor Derrick Lett says with a laugh. “What they’re learning here, they’re learning basic hands on, from learning to run a 6010 welding rod, to a 7018. The various positions, flat, vertical, overhead and horizontal. And just practicing and being proficient at it.”
Students in the class are hoping to use these skills they are learning to advance in future careers. Instructors say the students understand they are getting opportunities many their age will never have.
“I’m wanting to take a career in the welding industry. Whether it’s being a welder, a quality control inspector, just anything that involves the welding industry,” says sophomore Jessica McNaughton.
School officials say the vocational classes are not just for students in high school. After school classes are open to anyone in the community who wants to learn a new skill. Forms for classes are available in the Greenville High School Counselor’s office.
