A Mon Valley revitalization organization is in the final stages of developing a collaborative plan that would train local vo-tech students to become business owners while revitalizing Glassport’s central business district in the process.
“Learning to Own,” created by West-to-West Coalition Inc., is a 15-month mentoring program that would extend the training of vo-tech students after high school graduation in a “market village” and storefront sites along Glassport’s Monongahela Avenue. There, students would serve real customers and clients, under the guidance of professional mentors.
Vo-tech schools currently do not include business ownership in their curriculum, said Steve Pholar, coordinator of West-to-West, an organization based in Duquesne that is dedicated to revitalizing the lower Monongahela River Valley areas.
“One of the problems with vo-tech training in general is that they train students, then send them out into the world and say, ‘Good luck,’ ’’ Mr. Pholar said. ”We’re saying more than good luck is needed nowadays. In our program, we want to train young people to own a business so there’s an actual job for them when their training ends.”
Learning to Own is designed as a partnership among West-to-West, Glassport and a local career and technical education center.
Glassport has agreed to be the program’s “pilot demonstration model,” Mr. Pholar said. The town’s business district is “fertile territory” for the program, he said.
The plan tentatively lists Steel Center for Career and Technical Education in Jefferson Hills as the participating vo-tech school partner, but the school’s joint advisory committee has not yet endorsed the plan, Mr. Pholar said. Kevin E. Rice, Steel Center's executive director, could not be reached for comment.
The four-building market village would include a produce stand, a specialty shop, a delicatessen,a bakery stand and an Internet cafe, Mr. Pholar said. A healing arts clinic also is planned. Each training site would be custom-built for specific disciplines so that students can apply the skills they learned in high school to an actual market environment.
Students in the prototype program would be trained in team-building and ownership techniques and interact with vendors and suppliers, planning commissions, zoning hearing boards and others as their business develops, according to the plan.
“I love the concept of it," Glassport Mayor Rosemary Bradley said. "This is an old community. Business owners died off or retired, and a lot of the stores didn’t survive. We used to have a lot of things—a candy store, a bakery, beauty shops. We want some of those services back.”
Learning to Own could start as early as the 2015-16 school year, Mr. Pholar said.
Total project cost estimates have not yet been developed, he said. Site acquisition and development costs of the village and clinic are estimated at about $1.5 million, according to the plan. That includes $1.2 million for the village and $289,000 for the clinic.
Currently, the coalition is waiting for the state’s response to its request for $44,500 in pre-development funds to “build out the plan,” Mr. Pholar said.
South Allegheny School District, of which Glassport is a part, has endorsed the program along with Glassport council and Glassport Development Corp.
The first formal conference between Steel Center for Career and Technical Education and West-to-West is set for July 10, when logistical and other issues will be addressed, Mr. Pholar said. After the conference, a refined document will be submitted to the center’s advisory committee for consideration, he said.
“Once their board says ‘We endorse the project,’ we’re off and running with state and federal government funding applications,” Mr. Pholar said.
If Steel Center, which serves 11 school districts, does not endorse the plan, the coalition’s Plan B would kick in, Mr. Pholar said. Plan B involves developing the program with small community venues or opening up the program to other career development programs, he said.
The training sites also could be used by vo-tech students, still in high school, for on-the-job training, he said.
Learning to Own is based on the concept that, by partnering local vo-tech centers with businesses to create a seamless transition to site ownership, new jobs and community revitalization can occur, Mr. Pholar said.
Constant monitoring of the program’s successes and failures will ensure that the same issues don’t arise for future towns that choose to replicate the program, he said.
The plan is consistent with Gov. Tom Wolf’s “Fresh Start” plan for educational reform, he said.
The coalition also has received letters of support from the Allegheny Intermediate Unit and Community College of Allegheny County South Campus, he said.
Kathy Samudovsky, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.
First Published: June 19, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
