SoCAL ROC: Career tech crossroads

About 400 high school, and 400 adult students learn trades at Southern California Regional Occupational Center - in a time of change. Photo by Adrian Rodriguez

by Garth Meyer

He laid down in the chair, asking the dentist if his practice needed to hire any assistants. 

The dentist considered it as his 15-year dental technician clipped a bib on the patient and handed the doctor an instrument. The gentleman patient told of SoCAL ROC and how it trains young people for jobs. 

SoCAL ROC? 

Was he speaking of a definitive education spanning the Doors of ‘60s L.A. to the Orange County rockabilly punk of Social Distortion?

“Do you know anyone at SoCAL ROC?” the dentist said to his assistant.

No, she shook her head.

“SCROC?” she then asked.

“Yeah,” said the patient.

“That’s where I trained.”

The Southern California Regional Occupational Center, in Torrance, which serves six school districts in the greater South Bay, held its annual “Night of All-Stars’ ‘ scholarships dinner April 27, in a time of decreased enrollment, a superintendent search and three new board members.

At Kincaid’s on the Redondo Beach Pier last Thursday, as sailboats came in after a twilight race, the presentation began. 

Scholarship winners included a young woman who graduated from Cal-State San Marcos in 2021 and is switching careers to pursue nursing; a mother of three in the welding program, and a high school senior with “nonexistent” career goals before starting SoCAL ROC in emergency medicine, in which he found “an insane passion” to be a firefighter/paramedic.

Beach Cities Masonic Lodge funded several of the scholarships, as did Dr. Norman Sakura and his wife Karen. Their son, Andrew Sakura, was a senior at Palos Verdes High School 15 years ago, and an EMT student at SoCAL ROC, when he was killed in a car accident. 

A total of 15 scholarships were awarded at this year’s “Night of All-Stars,” to be used for college tuition, books, and for students going straight into work, work tools.

Winners were also named in the first SoCAL ROC “REEL” competition, in which high school students submitted (digital) films about the center. 

The images represented a sliver of learning for about 400 high school kids and 400 adults who take classes at SoCAL ROC.

“There’s a confidence-building aspect to this type of hands-on education that is priceless,” said Rolf Strutzenberg, the man in the dental chair, and the president of the SoCAL ROC board. “You see that look in their eye: I did something.”

 

Upheaval

SoCAL ROC is one of only two such centers in California.

In 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation that would switch school district funding in two years from “categorical funding” – which required them to spend money on certain items such as SoCAL ROC – to districts making their own spending decisions.

The change was a reversal of the model under which SoCAL ROC opened in 1967, during the reign of Governor Pat Brown,  Jerry Brown’s father.

“Pay-for-play,” Strutzenberg said of the new arrangement. “Suddenly SoCAL ROC had none of its own funding.”

Today, area school districts pay $1,234 per student per class – rising to $1,530 this fall – to send a student to SoCAL ROC, or SCROC as it was known before a “re-branding” in 2006.

 

SoCAL ROC cosmetology students Nicolette Lopez, Samantha Reyes and Kaila Soto at work in 2013, the era of full funding and more students. Photo courtesy of SoCAL ROC

 

A senior at Redondo Union High School, physical therapy scholarship winner Kaili Bodolay is congratulated by SoCAL ROC’s Burgandie Montoya, right, and Atlas Heraire April 27 at this year’s “Night of All-Stars.” Photo by Garth Meyer

 

Rolf Strutzenberg, SoCAL ROC board president, sits amidst the crowd at Kincaid’s April 27 on “Night of All-Stars.” Photo by Garth Meyer

 

Welding is one of the largest programs at SoCAL ROC. Photo courtesy SoCAL ROC

 

State Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi was on the SoCAL ROC board from 2010-12. Photo by Kevin Cody

 

 

Recipients of the 2023 Andrew Sakura Memorial Scholarship, Josh Rorabough and Olivia Maehara, gather with Dr. Norman Sakura and his wife, Karen, parents of Andrew. Their son was a SoCAL ROC student from Palos Verdes 15 years ago when he was in a fatal car accident. Photo by Adrian Rodriguez

 

Before 2015, it cost a district nothing (except transportation).

Each non-adult student is now first approved by a school district, working with Rocio Pineda-Contreras, SoCAL ROC’s career guidance specialist. 

Superintendent Dr. Atlas Heraire reports that initially, enrollment spiked after the funding change, but then fell off.

Inglewood stopped sending students altogether. Torrance drastically reduced how many it sent.

State Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, a former SoCAL ROC boardmember,  came through with a $10 million state grant over 10 years, which the center has used to build up its reserves as it cut the scope of its programs.

“He was critical for us, basically surviving,” Heraire said. 

Reserves are now at $7.9 million.

“The ideal thing is we’re a school, so we need district funding,” said Heraire. 

“We are deficit spending,” Strutzenberg said. “Part of it is enrollment.”

 

Adjusting

Redondo Unified is actively trying to expand the number of students it sends to SoCAL ROC

“We would like to see an increase each year, and we will continue to budget for the increase,” said Dr. Nicole Wesley, RBUSD superintendent. This school year, the district has sent counselors for a tour, took students on a field trip, and added SoCAL ROC to weekly high school announcements.

 “The increase in tuition will not deter Redondo’s goal to build student participation,” Wesley said.

The vast majority of California school districts offer (limited) vocational education by programs. 

“They are building the number, it’s just not available to a wide audience,” Heraire said.

So what does it look like for SoCAL ROC in the next five years?

“If a dollar is not tied to curriculum, or department needs, it doesn’t get spent,” said the superintendent. “If a course can’t support itself, it doesn’t run.”

Staff in 2008 totaled 150, with revenue of $12.6 million (and $11.6 million in expenditures). Now the school has 50 employees, current annual revenue of $3.6 million, and expenditures of $4.15 million. 

The majority of SoCAL ROC students are in the automotive program, followed by welding and then the electrician module.

A student can be certified as an electrician in 10 months of three-hour, four day a week sessions at SoCAL ROC. Cosmetology students work in a mock-salon, training for 1,000 hours before taking the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology exam. 

Other departments on the 10-acre campus include heating and air-conditioning; graphic and fashion design, nursing specialties, veterinary, pharmacy, medical sterilization processing distribution and kinesiology.

Each winter, SoCAL ROC leaders meet with local industry representatives to help shape the next year’s courses.

“‘This is obsolete; this is good; ‘this is where it’s going,’ they tell us.” Heraire said. 

The meetings cover curriculum outlines to classroom equipment to anticipated job opportunities.

SoCAL ROC’s three new boardmembers were elected last November. The superintendent search now nears a conclusion, with an announcement scheduled for May 8. 

Heraire will stay on as assistant superintendent.

“With long-standing institutional knowledge, Dr. Helaire will continue to contribute to the future success of SoCAL ROC and stay with us in a (new) role,” said Strutzenberg.

 

Costs

Strutzenberg is also a Redondo Beach school district boardmember. 

Raised on a 180-acre farm in Vincent, Iowa, his brother tagged him a “gearhead” at age 16. Strutzenberg took shop classes in the 1970s, starting in seventh grade, through the end of high school. 

“I’m the only school boardmember who has a Mig welder and a sewing machine at home and knows how to use them both,” he said. 

Soon after joining the RBUSD board in 2021, he discovered something. It is required by law to form a committee to promote career and technical education.

The board subsequently established an 11-member group led by chairman Jens Brandt, RBUSD principal of alternative education & director of instructional support. The group is made up of teachers, staff, students and Burgandie Montoya, SoCAL ROC director of programs. 

Strutzenberg suggests that, for local districts in general, pay-for-play had a broad effect as SoCAL ROC classes came to cost schools money.

“It was free before,” he said. “… It was no longer encouraged, and that can make a big

difference.”

SoCAL ROC is not permitted to ask voters for a bond because it is not a school district.

All the while, in recent years, state and national trends have meant more money for community colleges in career and technical education.

Assemblyman Muratsuchi suggests a way to tap into this. 

He has encouraged the SoCAL ROC board to explore partnerships with community colleges, such as El Camino and Harbor for dual enrollment (high school credits and college). 

“It’s up to the SCROC leadership,” Muratsuchi said. “The need for strong CTE (Career and Technical Education) programs is there. It’s about finding a funding model that is sustainable, and not in competition with their member school districts.” 

Earlier this year, Muratsuchi introduced AB-377, a bill to consolidate funding for state Career Technical Education Incentive Grants (CTEIG) and make $450 million available every year for these competitive gifts. SoCAL ROC received $500,000 from this program each of the last two years. 

 “I continue to be a big believer in SCROC. Since 1967 they’ve provided generations of South Bay kids an alternative to academic programs designed for kids primarily to go to college,” said Muratsuchi. “SCROC does both.” ER 

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