Northwest Kentucky has two school districts ranked in the Top 20. Henderson County School District is ranked 12th and McLean County School District is ranked 20th in the state of Kentucky. Union County School District is ranked 61, making it in the top third out of 170 schools.
Energy Week continues Nov. 1 when selected fourth-grade students from around the Tri-County will gather at Henderson Community College to participate in Energy Awareness Day. With the help of student instructors from Henderson County High School’s Career and Technical Education Unit, as well as South and North middle schools, the fourth-graders will get fun and interactive lessons on how energy is made, how it is delivered to customers and how it affects our lives. More than 275 students, instructors and facilitators are scheduled to take part in the program, which starts at approximately 9:30 a.m.
Read more here: http://northwestky.com/news/plugged-in-energy-week-includes-full-slate-of-events.html
Anthony Hazelwood used to drag his teenage son to work with him every Saturday morning. The teenager, Brad Hazelwood, hated missing the leisure time his friends were enjoying, like hanging out at the local pool, and wasn’t too keen on the idea of laboring in the heat of the day.
There was one perk, though. Brad Hazelwood learned to operate a bulldozer about the same time his friends were learning to drive cars. “I hated my dad for it at that time,” he said, placing his elbows on the executive desk in front of him and leaning in for emphasis. “Those Saturdays with his dad were almost 40 years ago. I wanted to be out with my friends. But now, I see what he was doing.”
And what the father was doing was instilling in his son a strong work ethic, teaching him that hard work, dedication and commitment to doing quality work mattered.
With all the buzz and media coverage about the economy these days, it is hard not to be negatively influenced by the pessimistic outlook. I am a concerned person myself, but on the flip side of things I¹m also fully aware of the success and optimism our local companies have displayed throughout these tough times.
Northwest Kentucky Forward is proud to say that 15 percent of our existing businesses announced an expansion in the last twelve months. Some of the businesses that have publicized their expansions include Audubon Metals, Matrix Composites, Saturn Machine, Sunrise Tool & Die, Sunspring America, Wetland Services, Rio Tinto Alcan and Little Kentucky Smoke House. The total capital investments calculated through these expansions is approximately $41 million plus an additional $37 million from the Rio Tinto Alcan project!
This is wonderful news! In addition, a total of 362 new jobs will be created with an average wage of $31,658 per year (excluding Rio Tinto Alcan). I salute each of these existing businesses that worked through these difficult times and persevered.
Northwest Kentucky Forward continues to work with sector strategies which are designed and implemented by a range of institutions and groups working to collaborate on seeking new and innovative strategies to help with today’s work opportunities. such groups involves are community and business/industry groups, the technical colleges, workforce investment boards, worker advocacy groups, labor-management partnerships, and others. Some of these operate initiatives focus on one target industry in a specific geographical region; others work simultaneously in several industry sectors; a few take a cross-regional or multi-site approach.
Tom West, Executive Director of Kentucky Workforce Investment Board, will be speaking this afternoon on the new Work Ready Communities certification process. This new program will allow counties to be certified as having met or working to meet a set of criteria which would be necessary to produce a workforce ready to work.
Kentucky is one of three states to pilot this new initiative and NWKF is focused on being one of the first Work Ready Regions. We will be finalizing a committee soon to oversee the process. The committee will be composed of existing businesses, educators, higher education, and local government.
NWKF has worked for several years in promoting workforce development as the key to economic growth. We strongly believe in the new Certification process and this will be the focus of our efforts in the next few years.
The AWS Foundation is pleased to announce recipients of the 2011 workforce development grants. Please see the attached image.
I am excited to announce that we will have a Chinese delegation of 11 students and 4 teachers from the Anshan Foreign Languages School visiting AB Chandler on Thursday, August 18 and Friday, August 19. They have been our “Sister School” for the past two years. The students and teachers will be visiting classrooms sharing about their lives in China. Our students will also be learning Chinese calligraphy, Chinese paper cutting, and Chinese street dancing! I am excited about this great multicultural opportunity for our students as we continue to grow their leadership skills!
