After six years at Central Nine, Director Nicole Otte is leaving her top leadership position this summer for another job in Johnson County.
Otte served for three years as assistant director and another three years as director. She led the school during a time of transition, which saw an increased focus on technical experience and skilled trades, and a student body increase of more than six percent. Her responsibilities included not only leading a school that reaches students from nine different Johnson and Marion County high schools the skills necessary to become trades workers, but also connecting those students to area businesses, colleges and other industry partners.
“I think what we tried to work on when I first came on, and what we continue to work on, is creating good customer service for our students and our nine high schools and trying to meet their needs, trying to provide them customer service and also provide it for our community and industry partners,” Otte said. “We know there is a shift in trying to not have kids think four-year college is the only option. There are lots of (roads) to success. I think that mentality has helped career and technical education.”
That shift has seen its way into state legislation. Next year’s high school freshman class will be the first to see those new graduation requirements, which place a heavier emphasis on career readiness than in years past. Additionally, as baby boomers reach retirement age, a new generation of trades workers is needed to replace them, Otte said.
“It’s coming from industry and business partners with the skills gap,” Otte said. “The workforce is retiring in 10 to 15 years and they need to replace them. They’re making their voices heard and parents and students are seeing the impact of college and debt and asking ‘can I provide sustenance after college and that debt?’”
Otte is most proud that the school was able to implement the Governor’s Work Ethic Certificate, which allows students who demonstrated they had career readiness skills to attain the certificate, which companies look for when hiring candidates, she said.
That success was met with challenges, the biggest of which was replacing teachers who left Central Nine.
“Replacing a staff member in (career and technical education) is hard because you have to find someone with industry experience to teach the program,” Otte said. “You can’t just come in with a teaching license, you have to have two to three years of career and technical experience. We also can’t pay what they would make in the teaching world. Right now, we’re pretty well staffed but that doesn’t mean something couldn’t change tomorrow. If we lose staff members, we have to go back to the drawing board.”
Currently, the school has 33 certified teachers, Otte said.
In her new job as Endress and Hauser’s Director of Workforce Development, Otte will be tasked with a similar mission of exploring partnerships with companies, Central Nine and the nine schools that feed Central Nine in order to strengthen the trades workforce. She will leave Central Nine on June 30 and start her new job on July 8. She hopes whoever replaces her keeps an open mind when it comes to the options available for students once they leave high school.
“(I want them) to look at all the options available in the community, business and industry,” Otte said.
As for her time at Central Nine, Otte grew attached to the atmosphere the school offered, she said.
“It has been my own little magical place,” Otte said. “We do a lot of great things here at (Central Nine), and we do it for the right reasons. Our teachers are the number one part of that. They bring knowledge of industry and impart that to students. They build relationships. The students are excited to be here. They choose to come here and it becomes a second family.”
