Board Member Matthew Lane asked the School Board of Palm Beach County on Tuesday to move toward a multi-part workshop series aimed at strengthening career and technical education (CTE) so students who do not attend college can graduate with skills to enter high-paying trades.

Lane said businesses in the county face worker shortages in skilled trades and that many graduates have only one or two career classes and are not immediately employable. “My vision is that our students who are not going to college leave with the skills that they need to become immediately employable when they graduate,” Lane said.

The Education Foundation sponsored a comprehensive review of the district’s CTE programs, Lane said, and he proposed a fall workshop series to study the foundation’s recommendations and identify next steps. Superintendent Michael Burke told the board staff is reviewing the study and will return with distilled recommendations; he proposed scheduling the first workshop early in the school year (first semester) so staff can incorporate findings into program planning.

Board members expressed broad support for the approach and suggested the workshops include employers and technical-program providers so the district can align credentials to local labor-market needs. The board did not adopt a formal policy at the meeting but asked the superintendent to schedule a workshop series and present an implementation plan.