PORT ANGELES – Renewal of a contract among school districts participating in the Peninsula Skills Center was discussed Monday.
About 30 people, including representatives from most of the area school districts, gathered Monday to discuss the future of the Peninsula Skills Center and the Lincoln Center prior to eventually signing a five-year renewal of the contract among the school districts of the North Olympic Peninsula.
The skills center, based in Port Angeles, was started as a job training school in 2002.
It is one component of the Lincoln Center, 905 West Ninth St., which includes Peninsula College, the Incubator, the Entrepreneur Institute and Lincoln alternative high school, said Jim Haguewood, director of the Incubator at Lincoln Center.
One of the goals of the center is to increase the trained employee pool on the Peninsula.
“We have an age gap here, the very young and elderly but not too many in between,” said City Manager Mark Madsen.
“If we can get these kids training for jobs, some of them could go directly into jobs on the Peninsula and make a viable living.”
That could benefit local businesses, Haguewood said.
“They spend thousands of dollars looking for people to go work for them from outside,” he said.
Programs include auto technology, building trades, composites, cosmetology, culinary arts, digital media technology, medical careers, information technology and welding.
The school districts included in the agreement are Cape Flattery, Crescent, Port Angeles, Quilayute Valley, Sequim, Quilcene, Chimacum and Port Townsend.
That agreement will expire this year, so the board members and some advisory committee members discussed the contract and Lincoln Center goals.
No date has been set yet for signing the agreement or meeting again on the issue.
