Five Questions

>>At the Academy for Technology Excellence, young professionals can earn certification in everything from software development and tech security to Web design and systems engineering-and they can take driver's ed, too. The academy, a magnet program at Dunbar High School in Fort Myers, focuses on preparing students for real work in local businesses. Along with traditional graduation requirements such as social studies and English, academy students take Microsoft and Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) certification classes that prepare them for jobs in information technology right out of high school.

Jana Hambruch, who helped found the academy two years ago, and Denise Spence, a technology teacher at Dunbar, recently initiated a business advisory council to engage the community in the program-and vice versa.

1. What is the role of the business advisory council?

JH: Businesses can actually [give] their input and see that this truly is geared toward our workforce.

DS: Who better than the people working in the industry to give us some feedback? Businesses want to do things with the community; well, start where it's important-in the schools. There is a real need. Your workforce comes from the schools; partner with the schools.

JH: [Businesses] think all you want is [money], but they don't realize their time, their resources, their networking produce a lot for our students.

2. What does that partnership produce for businesses?

JH: You're nurturing students to live and grow in your community. You want them to be entrepreneurs, you want them to be hired by employers, you want them to be successful in a university environment, but you want to keep them local.

3. What have students done with the training they've received in the program?

DS: A freshman who received A+ [networking and support] certification was immediately employed and was receiving $17 or $18 per hour. Of kids who just graduated, one went on to work for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and [another for] the Department of Children and Family Services. Many of them are employed part-time because they're going to college or they're here in our high school. T3 Communications has offered a student the opportunity to work for them.

4. Even if a student has the technical skills, can a high school student really be prepared for the workplace environment?

JH: What we outfit in the labs is very specific to a business or university lab. People ask, "Why does it have to look so professional?" Because students have to respect it, and they feel different when they walk in there. This is what a business feels like.

DS: I see them transforming themselves personally. There's a particular student I'm thinking of: He transformed his whole look because now he sees himself as employable.

5. Are there advantages to hiring these students?

JH: You have an opportunity to take an 18-year-old [or] 16-year-old student and say, "OK, I know what you know, you're certified, now let me teach you what I know."

DS: Our businesspeople have said that they love young people in technology. They know how technology works, and they're open to the nuances of how technology changes. They look at our kids coming out of this program as innovators.

-Sammy Mack