Retired ISD 166 teacher, principal, and school board member Leonard Sobanja is passionate about industrial arts education. College isn’t for everyone, and the 21st century job market is going to be seeking people with industrial arts skills. Sobanja would like to see the community invest in a newly established ISD 166 Industrial Arts Trust Fund that will be used to build the Cook County High School industrial arts program.
The Cook County High School Industrial Arts Trust Fund doesn’t have a fancy name and the one who inspired it won’t let it be named after him, but it is in place and awaiting support from the community.
Last November, the ISD 166 school board decided to establish a fund to promote the industrial arts program and gave Leonard Sobanja, a long-time advocate of vocational education, the discretion to determine how it would be used.
Sobanja is a retired ISD 166 teacher, principal, and school board member. At the March 21 school board meeting, he thanked the board for motivating him to develop the Industrial Arts Trust Fund.
In a letter to the board, he wrote, “In the last few years, since the school district virtually abolished the industrial arts program, it has become quite evident that this move to reduce this facility was an error.
“For a decade, the nation, the media and the general consensus advocated that every young person had to go to college in preparation for life, primarily the ‘job market.’
“That perception has changed. Mainly because as the labor market experienced an economic breakdown, computerization was introduced to keep up productivity, and as the workforce of baby boomers retired, the realization grew that many of the jobs in the job market still required hands-on experience but required new and additional skills.
“As many of you know, I have been an advocate for keeping the industrial arts program in the school and have been willing to work to modernize the program.”
Sobanja wrote that he had given the fund’s guidelines a lot of thought. He decided the fund should be used not for scholarships but for building the CCHS Industrial Arts Department.
The guidelines state, “The fund is dedicated to help build and furnish the space needed to meet the requirements of an up-to-date industrial arts facility that will allow students to experience the techniques needed in today’s labor market.”
The fund is open to donations from the community and funds raised will be placed in the school’s trust fund so they can enjoy the interest raised by that fund. Expenditures must be approved by a committee comprised of the superintendent, a school board member who advocates for technical education, the CCHS industrial arts teacher, the school counselor, and any teachers who have vocational education certificates.
Sobanja said he would like to see the fund grow and pointed out that new machinery is needed.
Hands-on learning is vital, Sobanja said.
The board unanimously passed a motion formally establishing the CCHS Industrial Arts Trust Fund.
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