| By Neil Johnson, reporter/anchor, Big Radio News |

Janesville, Milton and Edgerton school districts plan a summit aimed at linking students and local industries on paths to employment.

Milton Schools Career and Technical Education Coordinator Amy Kenyon says the Rock County Career and Technical Education summit is now held once every two years. She says it’s necessary to do so because trends and needs in local industry and trades can shift over a few years.

She says the three Rock County School districts use the summit to better identify and map out specialized internship and apprentice programs for in-demand local trades and for individual industries that have hiring lanes open to students right now.

For instance, Kenyon says, one student is in an internship at Clinton industry Scot Forge, where he’s involved in a high school apprenticeship program. After the student graduates, he’ll qualify and could be accepted into Scot Forge’s own, full apprenticeship program.

That progression represents steps toward the student galvanizing a career and the individual employer finding a path to train and retain a young, local employee. The connection is one that might not have been discovered without an outreach and dialogue spurred by local career education summits like the one the three districts are hosting next month.

Kenyon says the summit allows local industries to give the school feedback on what skills are now in demand — something that can change every few years, too. She says districts take stock of this to determine ways to quickly pivot toward skills training where local industries say it’s most needed now.

In another arena, the Milton School District has begun to pivot into introductory health care courses at its high school, including CNA nursing training and coursework, and in the future, other coursework for Emergency Medical Technician training and coursework in clinical phlebotomy.

Those measures, Kenyon says, are based on ongoing dialogues with local health care systems on what careers are in-demand but commonly see a shortfall in job applicants with basic skills needed.

The summit’s from 7:45 to 10 a.m. February 12 at the Rock County Job Center, 1717 Center Ave. in Janesville.

Local industries seeking to register for the summit can learn more by contacting the career and technical education coordinators at the Janesville, Milton or Edgerton school districts.