Both the World Trade Center Savannah and the Savannah Economic Development Authority took their monthly board meetings on the road Tuesday, getting a firsthand look at Woodville Tompkins Technical and Career High School.
The flagship career academy for the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System is helping develop diverse career pathways to meet the demands of the 21st-century workforce, helping students combine the academic classroom and career pathways.
Located on Coach Joe Turner Boulevard on the city’s west side, the school features a state-of-the-art facility and thriving partnerships with area businesses, giving students the opportunity to excel academically while gaining invaluable hands-on experience in real work, real world environments.
Principal Al McGuire told the group Woodville Tompkins offers full- and part-time curriculum, including honors classes, with a holistic approach to learning, adding that the school had recently sent two student groups to national competitions in California.
Schools superintendent Thomas Lockamy talked about the importance of Woodville Tompkins’ practical workforce training and internship programs, including partnerships with JCB and other industry.
The school recently graduated two students who were hired by Cisco Systems at $45,000 a year, he said.
In keeping with the meeting’s emphasis on workforce development, SEDA president Trip Tollison announced that the development authority has asked local economist Mike Toma to do a workforce study for the area.
“We know that unemployment and underemployment continue to affect us,” Tollison said.
“It’s a big issue for the community and we have a lot of anecdotal information, but not a lot of statistically valid data.
“We felt it was time to take a serious, hard look at the issues and how they are affecting us so we are better equipped to deal with them.”
Toma, director of Armstrong Atlantic State University’s Center for Regional Analysis and the author of the quarterly Coastal Empire Economic Monitor, told the group he planned to conduct focus group interviews, analyze and break down unemployment and underemployment numbers, survey small businesses and human resources professionals and conduct case study interviews with human resources personnel at major area employers.
“We hope to have a finished report by December of this year,” he said.
Bill Hubbard, president of the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce, said his organization was “100 percent on board” with the project.
SEDA board chairman David Paddison called the workforce issue “something we as a community need to wrap our arms around.
“When companies locate here or expand, their No. 1 concern is available workforce. Incentives get us in the game but workforce closes the deal,” Paddison said.
“We have to drill down into the data so that we understand our strengths and weaknesses. Once we have the analytics we can leverage our community resources to strengthen our competitive position.”