There's a skills gap in the state and several ideas on how to solve it.

That's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon, and today we're talking workforce.

An economic development strategy recently prepared for the Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development lists a lack of skilled labor in the state as a threat to economic diversification.

A discussion on how to best address that issue is ahead, but first, we ask, might trade schools be the answer?

Mike Rowe, host of the show Dirty Jobs, thinks so.

The TV star is partnering with the Engelstad Foundation to award trade school scholarships to freshmen at Western High School.

(Mike Rowe) Do know what you want to do when you're finished with high school?

-"I don't know," and... (student) I'm thinking about like, go to college.

-..."go to college" were the common responses TV Host Mike Rowe received when asking this freshman studies class about their plans after graduation.

-Did you guys ever see my TV show?

-Rowe's show Dirty Jobs highlights the difficult and dirty jobs that keep the country running.

-You got a sense of smell?

-Yep.

-Yeah.

Then this is not the show for you.

-Their importance, he says, is similar to the careers that trade schools can provide, jobs in welding and HVAC, for example, which don't require a four-year college degree.

-So a big part of this is to talk about work ethic and so forth but, in the course of doing that, show them what a successful welder looks like in 2024.

That looks like a man or woman making six figures with no college debt.

Right?

And so when you can start showing kids examples of skilled tradespeople who are prospering as a direct result of mastering a skill that's in demand, that's powerful.

(Kris Engelstad) And I think it's something that over the years trade schools have been diminished and not as valued.

But let's face it, we have to have people in the trades.

You go home and your plumbing is not working, you go home and your car is not starting, what will you do?

-Kris Engelstad is CEO of the Engelstad Foundation, which is funding the Warrior Pathway Program that Rowe inspired.

The four-year pilot program is available to this year's freshman class at Western High School.

And Rowe says if students in this traditionally underserved area complete it, they'll earn a full ride to any two-year trade school.

-If I have my way, initiatives like this will be happening in every zip code in every county in every state because the skills gap is not unique to Clark County, and underserved kids are certainly not unique to this state.

-Rowe says completion of the program is based on strong attendance and good behavior but not grades.

Here now to explore how this kind of program fits into the development of Nevada's workforce, as well as what else can be done to improve it, are Scott Hammond, Executive Director of the Nevada Governor's Office of Workforce Innovation; Stavan Corbett, Interim Executive Director for the Division of Workforce & Economic Development at the College of Southern Nevada; and Rene Cantu, Executive Director of Jobs for Nevada's Graduates.

Gentlemen, welcome.

And thank you for joining Nevada Week.

Scott, I'll start with you.

From the state's perspective, are trade schools the answer to the state skill gap?

(Scott Hammond) Well, it's certainly part of the answer, probably a big part of the answer.

We just, we definitely need more students who are aware that there are these alternatives.

I liked what Mike Rowe had to say.

I think I've been saying that for years.

We don't all need to go to college.

It's going to be a certain change, a switch if you will, for counselors in high schools to kind of get past the idea that every student needs to go to college.

And then if they don't all go to college, where do they go?

And so they'll also have to be trained and notified and educated on what's available out there.

But trade schools are a big part of that answer for the students who are now in high school maybe going on to something else.

But we still have to deal with students who have left high school, are out there now, and we have to figure out what do we do with them.

And trade schools can be a big part of that answer.

-Rene, it is Jobs for Nevada's Graduates that's overseeing this program at Western High School.

I also mention you are a member of the Nevada State Board of Education.

So from that education perspective, when you hear Scott talk about counselors within the schools, why are they not talking about trade schools?

(Rene Cantu) You know, in essence, I think that our personnel in schools teach what they know.

So they know about going to college, going to UNLV or UNR.

So when we start talking about trade schools, apprenticeships, internships, on-the-job training, that is not within the realm of their experience.

Therefore, when we ask our students at J4NG what they want to be when you grow up, a lot of what we hear are, I want to be an athlete.

I want to be an influencer.

I want to, you know, work in cosmetology or barbering.

So it's very frustrating.

That's the gap I think that we have to cross in order to help kids have better lives and help our employers have the employees they need.

-Okay.

So when they are getting to you at CSN, are they saying these same things?

Athlete?

Influencer?

(Stavan Corbett) There's some, right.

We have a diverse group of students who have very diverse, based on their experience, look at different things.

And what Dr. Cantu is sharing is definitely a part of that.

We find oftentimes a lot of our students are nontraditional.

They're first generation.

There's no family plan in terms of how to do this.

And so we have the opportunity to serve a lot of students that are still in the space of, Hey, is college for me, and/or because CSN offers short-term certifications, is that a space where they start and then decide to go into a degree pathway?

And so it's really what we found is the different options that we offer also supports the diversification of the way students see their future and what it is they like to do.

-Can you give me an example of a short-term certification?

-Yeah.

So we have what is called-- In Advanced Manufacturing, we have two programs: CNC Machinists and Mechatronics.

And so we know just based on our Nevada Department of Labor statistics and the data from the Governor's office that these are some of the fastest growing in-demand occupations that exist.

And so within 16 weeks, whether you're right out of high school or let's say you're further on in life and want to start a different life, in 16 weeks, you can get these industry recognized certifications, be in a space where you're making a thriving wage, and then what we have found is that employers will then incentivize based on the skills that they can continue for social mobility, not only for themselves, but also in terms of the company.

And so there's multiple-- it's a multi-dimensional opportunity in terms of taking a short-term-- earning a short-term credential or a microcredential, and then how are those individuals parlaying that into additional spaces?

-I want to go back to the trade schools.

Rene, you mentioned cosmetology.

And Scott, off camera ahead of this, you said, We don't need more cosmetology students, correct, in the state?

-Yeah.

I mean, look, we're gonna-- I'll defend that for a second.

We have a list, LVGEA put this out, it's called, I think, Blueprint 2.0.

I think we're on iteration two point-- someone's going to call and tell me that I was wrong.

It was like 2.6 or something like 2.4.

But every year, year and a half, two years, they're supposed to update what are the in-demand jobs here in this area.

What should we be training some of the students?

What can they get into?

And low on that list is cosmetology.

Why?

Because we have a plethora of them right now.

And what we really need to do, and we talked about this, is what are the in-demand jobs?

What could students be getting into right now and have a very lucrative career as soon as they're out of high school?

I think it was mentioned some of these careers, they might start off at 50- 60- $70,000.

But after three years, they could be getting into six figures without any college debt.

You know, just a little bit of debt.

But some of those are high tech, but not always.

Health care.

There's a huge need in health care.

And so if we have a coordinated statewide effort, along with the local boards and along with groups like Rene's, we can actually kind of come up with a better plan of how to get these students ready.

-Back to the counselors at the school level, what would it take for them to start talking about all the different options?

Training?

Mandated training?

-I do think training is a part of it.

But when you start saying "mandatory," I start getting a little nervous.

I think what we need is a lot more collaboration between agencies, educational institutions, and the K-12 system.

A lot of people have been working very hard to make those connections, but we need more of them.

And I think what we need to focus on or promote is career literacy among students.

And that's going to require that we help the teachers become more career literate, know what's out there, know how to get there.

-If I could add to that.

You see this in other states where industries, organizations, they'll offer some sort of like boot camp during the summer where they actually pay counselors or teachers to come in and see what their industry is about, what jobs are offered.

I used to work for the Nevada Contractors Association.

And so when you talk to students, a lot of times they think, oh, construction, it's a shovel digging ditches.

It is not that.

There's so many other jobs in that industry itself.

It's just a matter of educating and helping counselors know what's available so when a student comes in, they're not just talking about college.

Because there's a lot of students who will go to college because they were told this is probably the next step.

So they go and they wait, you know, a year, and they realize it's not for me.

Then they come back, and they don't have any skills.

They have debt, but they don't have any skills.

What do you do with them?

We want to avoid that.

We want to create pathways so that they can avoid all that, get a good paying job after high school, and then decide is there some college, some microcredentialing that I need to do?

What's the bridge to the next thing, the next thing, so that when they do go back and maybe they do get a four-year degree, there's a certain pathway in mind, and there's no wasted time at that.

If that means we're going to have fewer and fewer 18 year olds, necessarily, enrolling in college, then I think that's not a bad trend to have, because I was better prepared when I knew what I wanted to do when I got back off, you know, when I was ready.

-Amber, it's also a narrative, right?

Oftentimes, we think about college as a degree, right?

And also, but when you look at community colleges, there's a plethora of post-secondary opportunities that take place in college that don't require you to go through a two-year degree or a four-year degree and still go into the workforce at an expedited space.

So you'll hear our president, Dr. Zaragoza, says it's not that we'd, in a sense, it's more or less that not everybody needs to go into a degree pathway, but we want everybody to go to college for that post-secondary experience to get those microcredentials, to get those short-term trainings, and to be able to advance in both career and educational pathways simultaneously.

-I was going to mention that 60% of the middle-skills jobs, maybe this number is dated, but 60% of the jobs in Nevada are middle-skills jobs.

They don't require a baccalaureate.

They require, you know, maybe six months, a year, or two years of training to enter a well-paying job with no debt.

And that's the message we need to carry effectively.

-Okay.

So if students are starting to go into these fields or pursue these specific degrees that are-- well, they have different terminologies.

They're not two-year degrees, they're not four-year degrees, they have a lot of different names.

Are there enough of them, because I mentioned that economic development strategy at the beginning of the show and it said Nevada lacks technical programs at colleges and universities aimed at supporting the targeted industries.

So is the infrastructure even in place?

At CSN, do you think it is?

-So the infrastructure is always growing, right?

And the opportunities there is that we try, we attempt and have conversations with folks like Scott and his office and Dr. Cantu but, most importantly, the employers.

The employers are the ones that will allow us to understand what does our infrastructure look like?

What are the talent pipeline strategies in place?

And so a lot of the work we engage in-- like we're sitting at this table.

There's subject matter experts from the post-secondary space, and there's subject matter experts from the employer.

And that's where you see the conversations happening in terms of what are the right learning experiences that need to be developed?

What are the right integration with Scott's office, with the local Workforce Board?

How do we use federal and state locally funded opportunities like the SANDI Grant to support that type of opportunity and equal system?

So I don't know that it's-- of course, to some extent, is it under resourced?

Yes.

That's always, I think-- you can put anything and say it's under resourced, but we're moving in a way.

At the federal level, they're talking about funding short-term Pell.

That's going to be a game changer, even here.

ENSHE is now talking about how to fund a lot of these and incorporate these into an equitable funding strategy, that there is money coming from the state that ENSHE provides for noncredit short-term trainings as well.

So the conversations are happening.

I think it's dialogue like this and creating that critical mass to say, Hey, this is right for business and industry, and this is right for our community.

-Could I add to that?

-Of course.

-Because I've had conversations for years now.

UNLV, CSN, they're all trying to get that infrastructure.

But you're right about, you know, the partnership is not just getting the skills, it's also having a partner with industries.

-That's right.

-And my office right now is helping UNR.

They have a tech grant that they're, the Tech Hub grant, that they accomplished Phase 1.

Now they're asking for Phase 2 money.

Phase 2 I think is only going to be awarded to three to five different entities across the nation.

And it has a grant of anywhere between, I think it's 70 to 75 million that can be leveraged to about 100 million over about five years.

My office is busy working with not only the universities and community colleges like TMCC up north, but we're also working with the employers.

The whole tech grant, a Tech Hub grant, it revolves around the lithium loop.

And so we're looking at, you know, what industries are in that loop?

And what kind of employees do they need?

And what kind of training do they need?

How can we help?

How can universities help?

How can the community college?

So it's a really, it's a plan in place.

My office is helping out with a workforce development plan of that.

And so it really is a pathway.

So we're going to look at high school students and those who are out of high school to get in.

They're looking at 50,000 jobs over five years.

-Okay.

So when this report says Nevada lacks technical programs at colleges and universities, you say, We're working on it.

-The infrastructure, yes.

-But it's also a lack of connectivity with the training programs that we do have.

When you look at the video that you just showed, you know, with Mike Rowe at Western, the young people in the video really do not know very much about what's out there in terms of employment and training opportunities and very often don't see beyond their own neighborhood.

Right?

So part, you know, part of what Scott was talking about earlier was having a clearinghouse where you had all apprenticeships, internships, and other opportunities in one go-to place that then we could have teachers, counselors, and others, and students access.

The key is how do you get from where those students are to where they need to be in five or six years?

That's-- and that requires, I think, a lot of collaboration, a lot of connection, and a lot of just getting out of people's comfort zone and silos.

-That's one of the things you and I were talking about, because my office is working on a platform that would be sort of that one-stop shop where we could look at internships, apprenticeships.

We work with the Apprenticeship Council.

We work a lot with-- with the apprenticeship, oh, Toni Giddens I believe her name is.

We work a lot with her trying to figure out how do we get more apprentices in.

But it's really about having a platform where people can go and then look and then have a pathway on there so students know, If I get this credential, then that can lead to this, this, and this job right here.

And then also enhancing all the programs that we have.

We have a really tremendous number of great programs out there.

But it's about accessibility, and it's about usage.

And we have to get more people on these platforms and seeing what's out there so that we can provide that and then connecting them with the employees-- or employers, I'm sorry.

-Why would people be uncomfortable in collaborating, getting out of those silos as you said?

-That is such a big question.

I think it's a matter of just knowing what else is out there aside from you and what you're doing.

And I think organizations like GOWINN can help bring different, you know, entities together around the same issue.

I think that's what it takes.

I don't think it's any form of intent, but I think people are so darn busy trying to help the people they're trying to help that it's hard sometimes to look up from, you know, where you're working and see what else is out there.

But those importance-- those connections are important.

Because if our young people, if they can't see it, they can't be it.

Right?

If they cannot see what's out there, we're going to continue getting results like we're getting in terms of, I want to be an influencer or an athlete, that kind of thing.

-Amber, one of the encouraging things in going back to what Dr. Cantu was sharing in terms of collaboration is oftentimes individuals feel siloed based on the funding mechanism.

So the funding mechanism really, to some extent creates the narrative of how they do their work.

What we have seen though, which is positive, is a more braided funding strategy.

So where there's Title I dollars from WIOA, that can actually connect with SANDI dollars or can connect with Governor Reservers.

-Do you mind saying the SANDI Grant, what that is and the WIOA dollars?

-Yeah, absolutely.

So the WIOA dollars are Department of Labor Title I funding.

There's-- -Federal funding.

-Yes.

There's anywhere from 40 to 50 million biennium that gets deployed to the local Workforce Board for training, for wraparound services, for operations.

And then the SANDI, actually, I would pivot to Scott because, you know, his entity oversees the SANDI, which CSN has been a-- it's helped us and has helped us braid that funding to make the dollars go further.

But, Scott, in terms of SANDI?

-The SANDI Grant, it's money that came in during COVID and specifically designed to try and infuse money into people who were not in high school but out of high school but needed to skill-up.

And so we used that money.

We went and worked with partners like TMCC, CSN, and others to provide skill training to individuals.

The whole idea-- and we were very successful, right?

So right now, we're still doing a program, CDL training, with veterans.

And so they come in, they do a two-month program at a short-term, you know, certificate-- -CDL stands for?

-Commercial Driver's License.

-There we go.

-Truck driver.

-With veterans.

That's pretty cool.

But that money is gonna run out.

-It's gonna run out in September with the possibility that we can extend it to December, because many other states are having a hard time spending it fast enough.

And so they're talking about millions of dollars helping the other states that they have.

We don't have millions of dollars leftover, but we probably have some that we can still do another program through the month of December, I think.

-Let's say that all these high schoolers are aware of the various opportunities out there for them.

There's the issue of paying for it.

And you brought this up a little bit, but what is the difference in financial aid available for a four-year college program versus microcredentialing, undergraduate certificate, trade school, etc.

-So yeah, it definitely varies from state to state.

Here, you definitely have, you have to be engaged into a program that's up to 15 credits to be Pell eligible.

So financial aid.

So if there are short-term trainings that are either noncredit or not as much, that's where we look at the Department of Labor funds, the WIOA Title I funds, the SANDI Grant, the Governor's Reserve, which is also a Department of Labor infusion of dollars.

And even Title II, which is Adult Basic Education, Department of Education provides tuition dollars in terms of the adult learners that are looking to reskill and upskill.

So going back to Brady, it's identifying the pathway that the student is looking for, what, for a lack of a better term, profile do they-- or eligibility do they fit, and then utilizing those multiple pots of funding streams to support that individual.

So that's why the short-term-- Go ahead.

-It's the same across the board, the accessibility to scholarship for microcredentialing, for example?

-Depending on the individual.

So Title I Department of Labor funding is going to look different than SANDI, which is going to look different than Governor's Reserves.

So in a best case scenario, that individual may be eligible for all three funding streams.

So then they can be braided.

If they're eligible for only one or the other, then that's what supports them.

-Rene?

-And there's a whole other stream of funding resources that students can tap into.

You're looking at places like the Building Trades Union, the Carpenters Union, where students can learn and earn and not have to pay money to go into that.

We have programs like Tesla's Manufacturing Development Program where students enter the apprenticeship and Tesla will pay for their education so they can advance within the company.

And what we're looking at is having young people enter a career without that debt burden.

That is so important, especially when you're trying to get young people out of poverty or out of limited economic circumstances.

So there is a whole heck of a lot out there.

And I think, you know, from where I sit, working with young people is, how do we connect them?

How do we bring it all together and connect them to all this, all these different opportunities?

-Could I ask him a question real quick?

-Yes.

-So you're talking about a lot of this money that's out there, unions.

Oftentimes people will think of it in terms of, After I get out of high school, there's that money that's available.

Would you say that that money should actually be available before they get out of high school as well, or we should be tapping into that as well?

-Absolutely.

You know, absolutely.

The money, we need to-- when we think about K-12, we think of beginning and end.

We need to start blending K-12 and post-secondary.

Career technical education is doing some of that, as are dual credit programs that CSN has.

So there's a lot of effort, but it needs to become more of the rule than the exception, especially when you start talking about young people who have the high absenteeism, who have low GPAs, and who are not engaged.

They're the disconnected youth that WIOA talks about.

There are 42,000 disconnected youth in this valley who are, you know, they're not going to college, they're not working.

And we need to find ways to really access and help those young people.

This is what it's going to take.

-We don't know where some of them are.

-That's right.

-We don't know where they are.

We don't know how to engage them.

But I agree with you.

Some of the problems we have is that the only money that we have in CTE program, which is career and technical education programming, comes from the Perkins grants.

And the Perkins, you know, they allocate that every 10 years after do a census, and then your state is then locked into that money.

And quite frankly, we need more money in that programming.

And, you know, maybe there needs to be a rearranging of the pie, but you know how hard that is to rearrange the pie that, you know, talking about political lift, that is a hard one.

But we definitely need to have more money in that area because you see more and more students-- I can't remember the statistic.

I think it's only 32-33% of high school students go on to get a four-year degree in college.

And so we're missing the opportunity to hit about 60% of those students where they can actually benefit from that money.

We talk about absenteeism.

I think that when a student is hit in the sweet spot, like they're doing something every day that they love doing in high school, that you got fewer absenteeism problems, you have fewer disciplinary problems, and the student is learning.

And so if that is engaging them with more internships and more on-the-job training or work-based learning, then that's what we need to do.

That is going to take money, probably.

-And the career and technical education that is within the high schools already, is there enough of it in Nevada high schools?

-I would say probably not, no.

I think other-- I think other countries have done a much better job in terms--you know, Germany for example--in preparing young people to enter different career pathways successfully and build good economic lives that way.

I think in our country, we have so much choice that there really is no choice.

And in terms of for young people, I think relevance is so important.

And very often they see the schoolwork that they're doing today as completely irrelevant to their lives and their existence.

So how do-- and I think, Scott, you were saying about, you know, if they can go to school and be excited about something.

These are the kinds of things that would make them exciting, knowing that they're going somewhere, doing something with a purpose.

-How to get students excited to go to school.

That's the big question that we're going to be leaving with, because we have run out of time.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And thank you for watching.

For any of the resources discussed, go to our website, vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

And I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.

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