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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, April 17, 2017 Page 11 portunities available with area colleges, and students' ability to earn college cred- its for some of the classes. Mr. Olson opined that the program could continue to grow, and provided several recent examples. With District 623 on the leading edge, Councilmember Etten suggested sharing that model with other school districts. Councilmember Etten cautioned that the core quality education pieces needed to be built into the career training and tied together and not only focusing on work-based learning for credits that many schools may have. Councilmember Etten suggested offering non-credit ways or a way to maximize credits for students during the school day for those unable to go out but still able to obtain that credit experience. Mr. Olson responded that he had recently been approached by an architectural en- gineering firm interested in a pilot program for 10-15 students after school that would be tasked with designing an entire building using software. Mr. Olson also noted that the Department of Natural Resources had recently contacted the school with interest in connecting with the career training program. In response to Councilmember Etten, Mr. Olson assured that the STEM program helped connect the core learning from elementary through adult education, including finding unique ways for students to interact with new technologies. Mayor Roe noted his experience in unpaid, non-credit job shadowing as a small- town late-elementary school student in the late 1970's where he was able to expe- rience technical and engineering fields that had led him to his engineering career. Mayor Roe noted the importance of seeing the available opportunities to see pos- sibilities and areas of interest. Mayor Roe agreed with Councilmember Etten in the need for the education system to provide the basics, and for students to be very aware of the expectations of future employers in the workforce that their employees have those basic reading, math and problem-solving skills that would be applicable to any number of careers and vocations. Mayor Roe opined that the key to remember was that the workforce was looking for success with basic skills and abilities as well in following specific career paths. Board Member Gogins stated that the exciting part for her was in engaging stu- dents with those core studies as they come to understand from these business partnerships how useful they area and their value when students are shown their practical applications. Board Member Gogins noted that this helped motivate and engage students that may have missed that in the current curriculum. Board Member Boguszewski agreed that teaching students how to apply those practicalities at a younger age was important. Mr. Olson noted the current "silver tsunami" leaving the workforce and with a di- verse group of students needing to fill those roles with business partners in mind and creating equitable situations for all. Mr. Olson advised that this included