Whiteside Area Career Center teaches job-ready skills, boosts high school students into careers

Just steps from Sterling High School and Challand Middle School, Whiteside Area Career Center students are earning certifications, college credits and real-world experience through hands-on training in a variety of fields, such as health care, construction and culinary arts.

The Whiteside Area Career Center, a cooperative endeavor of 16 member school districts and three parochial schools, educates students who come from five counties: Bureau, Carroll, Lee, Ogle and Whiteside, according to WACC’s website. Most of the population is from Sterling, Rock Falls and Dixon, with the remainder residing in surrounding rural areas and small towns.

Matthew Hicks is WACC’s building trades instructor. His students work on a wide range of projects, from interior and exterior home repairs to deck replacements, custom-built dog houses and more.

“They end up doing a little bit of everything,” Hicks said. “Legally, they can’t do plumbing or electrical. They can run all this stuff into the boxes, get it ready, drill holes through walls and whatever they got to do to get the wires there, but they cannot make the connections.”

Students first develop their skills in simulated setups within a controlled environment at WACC, guided closely by their instructors, before applying what they have learned on real project sites.

Last year, Hicks’ class took on a large project involving a house for a client that he hopes to finish early this school year.

“We ended up redoing the whole outside of it – new windows, new door, siding, the whole works,” Hicks said. “It got to the point I knew we weren’t going to finish by the end of the year and would have to pick it back up this first semester.”

Hicks tries to find projects that can accommodate his entire class, which he said has been filling up quickly the past few years.

“If it’s doable with a group of 24 students at a time, that’s kind of what I look for ... a roofing project ... those are ideal,” Hicks said. “There’s also re-siding houses, window installs and new framing. Every year, we rebuild the walls for the Habitat for Humanity homes in Dixon.”

The health occupations course is offered to juniors and seniors interested in exploring health care. Instructor Sheila Fane said that although the class mainly introduces students to the field of nursing, it is beneficial for anyone considering a career in health care.

Over the school year, students earn their certified nursing assistant certification and eight educational credits toward Sauk Valley Community College’s nursing program through a mixture of classroom lectures and hands-on clinicals at local hospitals and nursing homes.

State regulations require students to demonstrate proficiency in 21 essential skills, including hand-washing, providing oral care, bathing and taking vital signs.

“Students begin learning these skills in our CNA lab at the WACC on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the first few months of class,” Fane said. “Our lab provides five nursing beds, five geriatric mannequins, wheelchairs, commodes, walkers and a plethora of other medical equipment that allows us to practice these skills realistically and thoroughly.”

The other days of the school week are for lecture and studying, before moving on to work at clinical sites toward the end of October. The state requires students to perform at least 40 hours of hands-on clinical experience.

Students rotate through three clinical sites – CGH Medical Center’s medical floor, the Citadel of Sterling nursing home and Cornerstone Special Care – under the supervision of clinical instructors Fane, Carrie Widolff and Jessie Houzenga.

Widolff also teaches WACC’s other health program, allied health, which offers opportunities outside of nursing. Houzenga also serves as the occupations program coordinator, managing all the state-required tasks that take place behind the scenes.

Over in the culinary arts department, students can earn their food worker card certification and, later, their food protection manager certification; learn about the greenhouse; and earn college credit.

“We’re kind of a year-round thing. We’re also helping all different age groups now. So that’s something that’s changing,” culinary arts instructor Joseph Hunt said. “This school year, we’re going to be affiliated with the Sauk Valley Community College greenhouse. We’ll have a little section where the students can go in and learn about the greenhouse.”

Students will visit the greenhouse at least once a week to manage operations and evaluate the progress of the plants. The program also offers dual credits with Kishwaukee College in hospitality.

“I think they give them three earned college credits,” Hunt said. ”We also offer the food worker card certification. Anybody who works in the food service business has to have a food worker card at a minimum. That’s a good thing because it protects you and me when we go out to eat.”

Second-year students can earn their food protection manager’s certification.

“Any food service restaurant has to have at least one person with a manager’s license to sell food to the public,” Hunt said. “We do that at the career center online, and then I proctor and manage the test when they get it. It’s nice because it grades it immediately, and they can walk out with their certificate the day that they pass the test.”

The program also offers experience in catering.

“We do events for the counselors, luncheons and any type of event that people want us to cook for them,” Hunt said. “The students do that, and then they cook for the teachers once a week in the teachers lounge. They’re in charge of setting up, planning, serving, cooking and tearing it down.”

Hunt said there also are scholarship opportunities that students can apply for online.

“Last year, we had two winners,” Hunt said. “I think they won $1,500 between the two of them.”

WACC’s history

According to WACC’s website, planning for the Whiteside County Vocational High School began 60 years ago. It became the first area vocational school in the state of Illinois when it officially opened its doors at the beginning of the 1966-67 school year, with Erie, Fulton, Lyndon, Morrison, Newman, Prophetstown, Sterling and Tampico as the original participating high schools.

The cooperative was reorganized in 1969 into the Whiteside Area Vocational Center, with Rock Falls, Polo, Milledgeville and Thomson becoming additional members, according to the website.

Additional school districts were added to the membership during the 1970s and 1980s, bringing the membership to 18. Control of WAVC transitioned in 1987 to the Whiteside Regional Vocational System Board of Control. School district consolidations in the mid-1990s reduced the membership to 17 high schools; when Ashton and Franklin Center consolidated in 2004, the number dropped to 16 high schools, according to the website.

At that point, students come from Amboy, Ashton-Franklin Center, Bureau Valley, Eastland, Erie, Forreston, Fulton, Milledgeville, Morrison, Ohio, Oregon, Polo, Prophetstown, Newman Central Catholic, Unity Christian and Faith Christian.

The Whiteside Area Vocational Center officially became the Whiteside Area Career Center in July 2001.