CLEARFIELD – At Monday night’s regular meeting, the Clearfield County Career and Technology Center’s Joint Operating Committee approved the Practical Nursing budgets for both the Clearfield and Ridgway sites for the 2009-10 academic year.
The program’s budget amounts were $447,460 for the Clearfield site and $380,873 for the Ridgway site. Both were unanimously approved by the board.
Elsie Maurer, practical nursing director, presented both budgets prior to the board’s vote. She said the budget had undergone a “significant change” for the upcoming year.
“It’s a really tight budget, but we try to maximize our faculty as much as possible from both a cost and quality standpoint,” she said.
Executive Director Lois Richards indicated that the funding for the program doesn’t come from the center’s member districts. She said that it, on the other hand, is funded by tuition dollars.
Maurer said that they would like the program to be more technology oriented in the future. She said that the program is working toward implementing BlackBoard – a web-based learning system.
“We have some students who keep full-time jobs and have families,” she said. She said that she believed implementing online aspects to the current program would only help and benefit them.
Maurer said she is confident that web-based learning is here to stay. She said that the BlackBoard system could potentially be implemented by other programs at the center. She said that played a large role in their consideration of the system.
Maurer said that the BlackBoard system would allow their program to offer online testing. She said that it would offer immediate feedback to the program’s students.
She also indicated that it could potentially put the program in position to offer continuing education courses online with approval from the state board.
“I do believe web-based technology is something that we can be successful at,” she said.
Afterward, Phil Carr, Clearfield School District representative, said that he was excited about the web-based technology.
Maurer agreed and said that it’d only be beneficial for their students.
“I really think (online learning) is going to be a big deal,” Richards said.