Last week I had the opportunity to visit the Franklin County Career Technical Center in Belgreen to do a story about all the programs they offer in celebration of National Career Tech Week.

I’ve been to the Career Tech Center a couple of times since I started working at the paper, but before that, I didn’t even know it existed.

I have a feeling many people are the same way and don’t even realize what the Career Tech Center is or what they do.

The story I wrote that was in Wednesday’s paper told about all the different programs they offered, but I wanted to give my personal opinion about the Career Tech Center and some of the observations I made while I was there.

Every student I saw or talked to seemed to be genuinely grateful to have the opportunity to attend a place where they could receive training for their future.

Most of the kids there are looking at careers where they will need to use the skills they’re already learning as high school students so they’re able to get a head start on their training.

This fact allows Franklin County students the chance to be ahead of the game and be better trained for and more likely to receive jobs that other people their age (or even older) might get passed over for because the Franklin County students have extra training and experience that the others don’t have.

But the neat thing about the Career Tech Center is that is can still be beneficial to students who don’t plan on having a technical career because they can learn just basic things that would come in handy working around the house, basic technology skills like typing or using a computer, or practical things for healthy living in the health science classes.

I don’t think we really realize what an important and valuable tool we have right here in the county through these career tech classes. We basically have workforce development right here, which should be a great asset and marketing tool to industries that might be interested in locating in the area.

Times are tough financially in the education system and many things have to be cut, but I sincerely hope that legislators and education officials realize how important these kinds of classes are.

In my opinion, these career tech classes are just as important as core classes. Some people may not feel that way, but consider this:

Just like my English classes were vitally important to me as a writer, a collision repair class is vitally important to someone who wants to be an auto mechanic; a building technology class is vitally important to someone who wants to be a carpenter; a health science class is vitally important to someone wanting to be a nurse.

It’s the same thing as fine arts classes, too. Someone who desperately wants to be a singer or an actor or a professional musician needs to have access to fine arts classes to prepare them for their future.

In the end, everything is important to someone, and we are lucky here in Franklin County to have a place that teaches the students in the area the skills they need to have a career that is important to them.