Kaine focuses on job training in Valley visit

FISHERSVILLE -- Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine is a Harvard-trained lawyer who has served both as a U.S. senator and governor of Virginia.

But as a young man growing up in the Midwest, he watched his father run a welding and ironworking shop in the stockyards of Kansas City.

“I learned what artistry good welders perform,’’ said Kaine, D-Va., during a Tuesday visit to the Valley Career and Technical Center in Fishersville.

Now, Kaine wants to be among those in the U.S. Senate championing career and technical education. He is one of four senators who are part of the career and technical education caucus.

The caucus generates ideas and legislation on career and technical education. Next week, Kaine and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman will co-sponsor a bill titled Educating Tomorrow’s Workforce Act. Kaine said the legislation will encourage apprenticeship programs and career and technical academies. The bill also will focus on aligning career and technical education curriculum with local, regional and state workforce demands.

“I talk to employers all the time,’’ Kaine said. “They need health care workers and welders.”

Kaine spent more than an hour Tuesday touring the welding, precision machine and licensed practical nursing programs at the Valley Career and Technical Center.

He learned of the high job placement for those earning certificates in the programs.

Gary Cline, the precision machining instructor, said the vast majority of his graduates find employment, and said most are employed in the Shenandoah Valley.

“They have no desire to leave the area,’’ he said. Darla Miller, the principal of the Valley Career and Technical Center, said welding students can further their training at the center by taking welding classes at Blue Ridge Community College. “They can fine tune and hone their skills,’’ she said.

During a round table discussion with area educators and employers, Kaine quizzed them about employment needs and training.

Staunton Schools Superintendent Linda Reviea said the focus on readiness has shifted in her school district to a new nine-week career awareness program for sixth-graders. The program will start this fall.

“We want children to graduate from high school and be gainfully employed,’’ Reviea said during the round table discussion. She said the discussion about careers needs to start when students enter kindergarten.

Waynesboro Schools Superintendent Jeff Cassell said it is important not to divorce career and technical education from public or higher education.

“You can leave high school with a vocational skill set and either pursue higher education or go in the workplace,’’ he said.

Kaine said he has witnessed a shift in what economic development prospects want. He said when he became Virginia’s governor in 2006, economic development prospects had become more focused on the quality of a state’s workforce than an incentive package to lure them to the state.

 And the senator said he believes more manufacturing jobs will return to the United States because of lower U.S. energy costs. But Kaine said the numbers of those jobs will be less than in the past because of the technology used in plants today.

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