Batesville High To Test Drive Pilot Program

Press release from Reps. Randy Frye and Jud McMillin

Batesville High School

(Batesville, Ind.) - Reps. Randy Frye (R-Greensburg) and Jud McMillin (R-Brookville) are pleased that Batesville High School is one of six high schools selected in Indiana to participate in an advanced manufacturing and logistics curriculum pilot program.  This is the nation’s first high school level, credential based Advanced Manufacturing and Logistics (AML) curriculum pilot program.

“This program will go a long way to help Indiana fill the skills gap of workers created by the shift from low and medium skilled manufacturing jobs to high skilled occupations,” said Rep. Frye. “Batesville High School is a great school that is more than capable of successfully administering this curriculum to prepare its students for manufacturing in the 21st century.”

Conexus Indiana developed a prototype of the curriculum's online delivery model in 2010. The program received the unanimous endorsement of its Champion network of educators. Ensuring that students were learning industry skills and meeting state education standards was of upmost importance when crafting this curriculum. Conexus received input from the Indiana Department of Education, high school educators, and human resource and operation executives from companies across Indiana.

“I could not be more pleased that this curriculum is being made available to Batesville High School students. Ensuring our students are industry ready and have acquired the skills necessary to compete in the 21st century job market is critically important,” said Rep. McMillin. “I commend Conexus Indiana for leading this initiative that will help our state continue to grow as an advanced manufacturing and logistics center.”

The course content will be approximately 40% delivered online and 40% project-based. The final 20% will allow individual educators to localize course content to cover manufacturing issues unique to each region. The objective of this program is to create a consistent, quality, plug-and-play curriculum that industry and educators can rely on to deliver industry-required skills.

Those students who complete the AML curriculum can earn up to five nationally portable industry credentials in advanced manufacturing and logistics from the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council (MSSC) and The Association for Operations Management (APICS).

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, during the last part of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st century, high skill manufacturing jobs grew by 37%, while low and medium skilled jobs declined by 24% and 18% respectively.

Following the successful completion of the pilot program in 2013, the curriculum will be rolled out to high schools throughout the state.