Chopping Block

Twenty seven years ago, Brian Zagnoli was a janitor working at a church. With nothing to lose, he enrolled at North Valley Occupational Center’s Aviation Center, where for $35 a semester, he earned a certificate to become an aircraft mechanic. Today, he earns about $100,000 a year as director of aircraft maintenance at Dole Food Company Inc. He owns a house in Van Nuys and is nearly finished putting two kids through college. Such stories may become a thing of the past if Los Angeles Unified School District is forced to shut down North Valley Occupational Center (NVOC), along with West Valley Occupational Center (WVOC), which together prepare more than 17,000 area residents a year for practical jobs and careers in fields ranging from photovoltaics and cosmetology to aircraft mechanics. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has supported these longstanding Valley institutions, along with three other regional occupational centers and more than 30 adult education sites across Los Angeles. Proposed funding for regional occupational centers and adult education sites together total about $196.5 million, according to LAUSD’s 2012-2013 interim and fiscal stabilization plan, released Dec. 8. But 93 percent of that money is now potentially on the chopping block as the school district looks to make up a $543 million shortfall in its $7 billion 2012-2013 budget. In a statement for the San Fernando Valley Business Journal, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy said that in light of the systematic cuts already made to contend with persistent budget shortfalls since 2008-2009, and no additional state revenues forthcoming, “I and the Los Angeles Board of Education are left with no choice but to seriously consider massive reductions in critical areas, including arts programs for elementary school students, adult education and early childhood education. We must do all that we can to preserve K-12 class size at acceptable levels for the next year.” Local businesses that rely on the inexpensive training provided by the schools are deeply troubled by the prospect of losing the adult education and vocational training programs. They say the closures would cause companies to lose an important partner in workforce training and development, forcing them to spend more money on recruiting and training. Worse, the Valley would lose a critical educational asset that helps thousands of immigrants and first-generation Americans train for practical jobs with good futures. The loss would be especially critical to Van Nuys Airport, which has relied on NVOC’s Aviation Center, located on the airport grounds, to train a generation of aircraft mechanics. Businesses that operate from the airport say many of the mechanics started as service technicians, towing and refueling planes for $10 an hour, and like Zagnoli, worked their way up to substantial jobs as mechanics and maintenance directors, with five- to six-figure salaries. Without the school, the estimated 100 businesses at Van Nuys Airport would incur significantly more recruiting and training expenses, said Curt Castagna, president of the Van Nuys Airport Association. “You eliminate this program and you decimate the economic engine of the Valley, which is the airport,” he said. The businesses at Van Nuys Airport collectively employ 5,800 employees, and many got their start at the NVOC aviation school, he added. Tim Wray, chief operating officer of Maguire Aviation, which has hired more than 40 people from the school in the past decade, said a recent shortage of aviation mechanics makes the possible loss of the school even more critical. “There is a shortage of good mechanics, and with the school here, it’s much easier to draw residents who are living right here.” In a Jan. 24th letter to the Board of Education, the Van Nuys Airport Association stressed that closing the school would “not only diminish the pool of licensed airframe and power plant mechanics needed to build the region’s current and future aviation workforce, but have a devastating effect on the people and economy of Los Angeles.” “It doesn’t make sense to pull the plug on a vocational school that provides a clear and viable career path for young men and women in the community,” said Craig Walker, vice president, operations and development at Castle & Cook Aviation, which has hired more than 100 NVOC graduates over the years. “That school is where we turn first when we go out to look for line service people and mechanics.” Clay Lacy, founder of Clay Lacy Aviation, a legend in aviation, said he was planning to donate a Bombardier Learjet to the school this year so students have something more up-to-date to learn on than propeller planes. “I hope they survive,” Lacy said. “The school is a real asset to the airport and aviation.” Costly cuts Deasey is scheduled to present his budget to the Board of Education on Feb. 14, and a decision on the adult and career education program will be made by the full board sometime shortly after that. In a Dec. 8, letter to the Board, Deasy acknowledged that the budget shortfall will force decisions that are “ugly and heartbreaking.” That same letter is what has many businesspeople and community leaders alarmed about the fate of the schools. While the adult education and vocation programs have seen their budgets cuts numerous times, no one has ever suggested completely eliminating the programs. Deasy’s fiscal stabilization plan calls for zero funding for adult education under a worst-case scenario, slashing the entire $139.5 million budget. Another line item would reduce the Regional Occupation Center Program’s $57 million budget by $43.3 million, leaving it only 25 percent funded. As evidence that Deasy intends to call for the elimination of the adult education programs, local officials also cited a district reorganization plan for next year that makes no mention of adult education. “There are lots of other department and programs inside this document but there is no adult education anywhere,” said Veronica Montes, principal of West Valley. Congressman Brad Sherman has written to the Board of Education urging members to reconsider eliminating the program and to look for ways to save the schools. “I realize they have tough decisions to make, but completely eliminating the program would be a mistake…it would be tragic,” he said. Kenn Phillips, vice president of the Valley Economic Alliance, said it behooves the community and the Board to search for alternatives to support the programs, which he called a critical community asset. Besides the aviation industry, hundreds of small manufacturers in the Valley depend upon the adult education programs to provide inexpensive English as a Second Language and literacy programs to hourly workers. “The cost is peanuts,” he said, “and many companies rely on it.” The Board of Education should consider raising the tuition or finding private industry partners to support the vocational programs instead of completely chopping it, Phillips said. “Maybe they should be charging $1,000 a semester. Even that is less expensive than what many private schools charge,” he said. “There’s got to be some middle ground other than complete elimination.” In addition to the aviation mechanics program, which enrolls 150 to 175 students a year, North Valley enrolls an estimated 5,000 high-school students and adults at its Mission Hills campus. There, students are trained for careers as emergency medical technicians, machinists, welders, auto mechanics, licensed vocational nurses and pharmacy techs among many other fields. The school charges $1,000 for the two-year aviation certificate and as little as $75 per semester for its other programs, said Carlynn Huddleston, principal. “We serve the working poor and the middle-class — people who cannot take out a $40,000 loan to go to school,” Huddleston said. The two regional occupational centers also do a considerable amount of retraining of dislocated workers who have lost jobs in manufacturing as the region’s employment base has shifted. Many retrain to be insurance and billing coders in the growing health care field, or train to become physical or sports therapy aids, said Montes of West Valley. The West Valley center enrolls 12,000 students a year at its campus in Woodland Hills. “And imagine,” Montes said, “what it would cost the district to board up this building and provide security so it doesn’t become a squatter heaven.” She added: “It would cost the district more money to close us down than to keep us open.” The occupational centers, she said, are extremely cost effective. With a budget of roughly $6 million per campus, the cost per student comes down to $500 to $2,000 per student. West Valley has worked with businesses ranging from solar panel installers to hair salons and hundreds of local garages to help prepare workers for jobs, Montes said. The school’s auto body and painting program has long been a Valley mainstay, said Michael McClough, who has trained some 5,000 students over a 31-year teaching career. “Every auto shop you go into in the San Fernando Valley, you will find someone who came from here,” McClough said. “It will hurt the business community if they are gone. They will have no source to get any trained workers.” A comparable private school, for example, the UTI Auto Technical School, costs $18,000 for two years compared to $250 for the same training at West Valley, he said. Victor Zuniga, who owns Zuniga’s Auto Upholstery in Northridge, said losing the school will be a blow. “If they shut down, we’ll have to teach them here, and that will take longer and cost more,” he said. “We need someone who can teach these skills.”