ISSUES

By Nancy Knight

• Job Skills
• Communication

The Riverside County Board of Education has a budget for ROP (Regional Occupational Programs). The curriculum is designed for junior and senior year high school students to learn entry level job skills. As an example, the Temecula program offers training for banking operations, the Murrieta program offers training in office related computer skills or in Lake Elsinore there are positions at the hospital for exposure to the health care field. The students have approximately 90 days of part-time exposure in a semester program. How many students know about ROP? What is the success rate for job placement after ROP? I inquired of local students and many had no knowledge of ROP. I inquired of bankers who participate in the teller training ROP and found that the students mostly do filing and on occasion they are given the opportunity to perform an actual banking transaction. Are we doing the students, local businesses or the taxpayer a service by providing the students with this opportunity? I think we can do better!

If elected, I will work to improve the ROP curriculum. I will be an advocate for new programs that have local job opportunities available for our graduates. I will analyze the success rate of current programs and eliminate programs that have limited value for our youth.

In the real world of banking, it only takes two weeks of training to become a bank teller. Our students deserve real-world training that provides them with the skills to perform a real job when completed. If not, our taxes are not being spent effectively and efficiently on ROP.

Communication

If you are reading this and did not know about the Riverside Board of Education you probably did not know about the ROP program either. If parents and students have such a limited knowledge of these programs, how well are they working? How many of our high school graduates have no job skills when they graduate just because there was a lack of communication all these years and no one to advocate a better program? I will be your advocate. I believe there are great opportunities to partner with existing businesses to train our youth for real jobs. I believe there are opportunities to assist local business partners with business growth opportunities in exchange for youth job creation and training. A cooperative effort with school district personnel, businesses and elected officials can improve these public funded programs.

There are five keys to success. Need, niche, passion, barrier and reinvestment. The taxpayer has no choice in whether they will keep reinvesting in education but they do have choices in whether they invest in a program within a market niche that has a local need and one that the student has a passion for. Barriers that prevent competition is a key to success in business but barriers that prevent our youth from achieving success in the job market cannot be tolerated. I will work to remove the negative barriers and open opportunity for our youth. I will communicate progress so that your child or grandchild does not lose out on an opportunity merely because they did not have information.

For more information on my positions, please visit http://www.thebugle.com and click my campaign link button from the list on the left side of the home page.