Welcome to green technology.
Some refer to it as renewable energy. Everybody’s been talking about it.
You can’t avoid it. The Obama administration has promised to invest in it.
And in Kathy Evan’s solar panel installation class, students are actually doing something about it, making the alternative school a one-of-a-kind in Orange County.
Next week, the school will be recognized by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board of Education as a prototype. That means it will behoove other schools to pattern themselves after Back Bay High if they’re interested in developing similar programs.
“You know how years ago, when we were growing up, wood shop and auto shop were a big deal? But then over the years schools got rid of them, even though the students went on to get great jobs because they became great carpenters and great auto mechanics?” asks Principal Debbie Davis. “Well, this class is like one of those from way back when. We’re preparing our students for the work force just like those classes did back then.”
And everybody agrees, Davis said, that the jobs created in the next few years are going to be in the field of renewable energy.
Which is why Annie Younglove, the job coach at Back Bay High, wrote a grant that enabled the school to qualify for funds under Senate Bill 70, a state-funded bill supported by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that funds careers in technical education.
The money is distributed through the Costa Mesa-based Orange County Department of Education.
Back Bay High qualified for three years to the tune of thousands of dollars each year.
And last December, the class got underway. And dozens of students who had a hard time at a mainstream school found themselves looking straight into the complexities of a solar panel.
