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Program Steers City Students to Trades: Reading Works, Which Links at-Risk Youngsters With Mentors in the Building Trades, Gets $130,000 in Start-Up Funds From the State.

Posted on: Saturday, 29 April 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Dan Kelly, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Apr. 29--Reading High School has a 50 percent dropout rate partly because many students can't see how school will benefit them in the future.

But officials believe a program started Friday that links at-risk students -- some as early as the eighth grade -- with mentors in the building trades will help at least 15 students each year construct a brighter future.

State, county and local officials, educators and building trades representatives met in the high school to accept $130,000 in start-up funding from the state for a program called Reading Works.

"The building trades are a perfect opportunity for these students because they can see their future," said Estelle B. Richman, secretary of the state Department of Public Welfare.

Mayor Tom McMahon said the program was conceived during a meeting with Kathleen A. McGinty, secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection.

"She told me Fritz's Island (sewage plant) needed fixing, and I agreed," McMahon said. "For the rest of the meeting we talked about Reading, including our high school and how we had a 50 percent dropout rate."

McGinty said the meeting was an eye-opener for her.

"We decided to make lemonade out of lemons," she said.

Reading Works takes an existing building trades apprenticeship program at the high school and adds resources to it. Students must still finish high school, but on Wednesday nights and Saturdays they take courses at Reading Area Community College that prepare them for work.

The contractor hired to rebuild the sewage plant will be required to hire the graduates of the program, McGinty said.

Grimaldo Berrios, a senior, said he wasn't really interested in school until he got into the program.

"Then I realized I really like school and now I'm accepted to Shippensburg University," he said.

Mara Otero, program coordinator, said students who have little interest in school and don't know what they will do after graduation are targeted.

Mark Snyder, business agent for the plumbers union, said the program benefits the unions.

"It's like a pre-screening process for us," Snyder said. "We get candidates who know how to do the job and are motivated to work hard."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Reading Eagle, Pa.

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Source: Reading Eagle

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