Articulation Agreements

ARTICULATION AGREEMENTS

Strong Relationships with Public Schools Bring Recruiting Opportunities for Contractors and Locals

By / Sheralyn Belyeu • Photos courtesy of Nichols Career Center

Sheet metal professionals in central Missouri have built relationships with school officials at all levels of the school system, opening up recruitment options Local 36 could not have imagined. The JATC has signed articulation agreements with high school career centers in three communities and is finalizing a similar agreement with Missouri State Tech.

Typically, an articulation agreement allows students to use the classes they take at one institution for credit at a different college or university. In this case, instead of transferring credit for math or English courses, these articulation agreements help young people start sheet metal apprenticeships before they even graduate. Students at participating career centers can earn up to 500 hours of credit at the JATC for classes they take in high school. Students must earn high grades in order to receive the maximum credit.

Those high grades are key to the program’s popularity with school officials. In 2008, Russ Unger, apprentice coordinator for Local 36, was on a routine recruiting visit to the Columbia Career Center in Columbia, Missouri. School leaders pointed out that the teens would work harder in class if they could see a direct connection to their future pay. They offered to set up an articulation agreement with Local 36.

Unger saw that he could help teachers out and build Local 36 at the same time. “I took the idea to our business agent, and he had no problem with it,” Unger says. “We came up with some hours, and the career center agreed.” A student who earns As in all of the HVAC classes offered at Columbia Career Center can receive 500 hours of credit at the JATC. A student who earns Bs in the same classes will receive 400 hours of credit.

Back row from left to right: Cody Bayshore, director of Nichols Career Center; Craig Strope, HVAC instructor at Nichols Career Center; Russ Unger, apprentice coordinator; and Jake Crismon, director of marketing. Front row: Nichols Career Center students