MOUNT VERNON — The Knox County Career Center Board of Education has announced it has decided to stop offering its high school engineering drafting program due to the apparent lack of student interest.
Engineering/drafting enrollment for the 2009-10 school year was 13 in the junior lab and 11 in the senior lab. Only seven juniors enrolled in 2010-11 and there were 10 seniors. This year’s enrollment consists of 10 juniors and seven seniors. According to the agreement negotiated with the KCCC teachers’ union, adequate numbers are 15 students in the junior lab and 12 in the senior lab within a three-year period.
The Knox County Career Center has discontinued other programs in the past for the same reason. The most recent was a senior-level marketing class closed in 2005. Enrollment in that class in 2002-03 was eight students; in 2003-04 there were 11 students; and in 2004-05 only 10 students were enrolled. Other programs discontinued due to low numbers of students include: Telecommunications, agricultural mechanics, appliance repair and electronics. The current horticulture, building trades and preschool programs are housed in lab areas vacated by the discontinued programs.
Other career centers also keep an eye on enrollment.
Glenna Cannon, superintendent of Pioneer Career and Technology Center in Shelby, said Pioneer’s Computer Aided Drafting and Design program currently has 10 juniors and 19 seniors, but usually averages 17 to 19 students in both the junior and senior programs. She said Pioneer’s minimum enrollment requirement is a three-year average of 12 students.
