Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

At the Aug. 17 Marengo County Board of Education meeting, Career Tech and Technology Coordinator Terry Norton announced that Marengo County was approved for its College and Career Readiness grant. Norton applied for the grant over the summer and the State Superintendent Dr. Eric Mackey approved the grant last week.

In total, Marengo County received $541,000 from the CCR grant.

The grant will fund several projects and programs during the course of the 2023-2024 school year including Virtual Reality Career Tech classrooms where students can practice healthcare, trades such as welding, piloting drones, driving a forklift, and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) safety among other areas.

The funding will allow Marengo County to provide many more opportunities for Career Tech students. Additional virtual reality systems will allow elementary and middle school students to participate in virtual career exploration and job shadowing.

Eleventh-grade students will participate in a four-day ACT Boot Camp in February. The grant will fund a consultant to work with students and teachers for four days.

The grant is purchasing official testing supplies and practice tests for the ACT, ACT WorkKeys and the ASVAB Test.

Also covered under the grant is a robotics program for each of the county schools. The school district will partner with UWA to expand the robotics program at Sweet Water and to create programs at Marengo and AL Johnson High School.

Marengo High School will soon begin the creation of a community plant nursery in Dixon Mills. This operation will run as a true business under the county’s new plant sciences program being led by Mr. Asaud Frazier. His students will be able to learn all aspects of running a nursery and selling to the public.