CAPE CAREER, TECHNOLOGY CENTER NEW NAME OF SCHOOL

A vocational school by any other name.

Last month the Cape Girardeau Board of Education approved a recommendation to rename the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center.

Although director Harold Tilley, who recommended the name change, believes it will take several generations before the school is referred to as anything other than the "vo-tech" school, he hopes people will recognize its new emphasis on providing workers skilled in technology as well as vocational training.

"That name won't stick until we have a few generations die out," Tilley said during the vocational school's annual Recognition Breakfast Tuesday. "We're a regional entity and will continue to offer secondary and post-secondary education throughout the region. But demands of industry are such that they're demanding more technology-oriented, skilled workers."

The name change reflects a national trend among vocational schools and organizations from purely vocational training to a more career-oriented format, Tilley said.

For example, the former American Vocational Association was renamed the Association for Career and Technology Education last summer, and the Missouri AVA became the Missouri ACTE in the fall.

Tilley said his school's new name was not selected randomly. As work progresses on the vocational school under construction west of Interstate 55 and Kingshighway, and with the national trends and better access to technology that will be available in the new facility, the name change made sense, he said.

The new school will bear the same name.

"With all the new technology, we felt it was appropriate to change the name," said Tilley.

Because the communities served by the school have called the facility the vo-tech school since it opened in 1965, Tilley said his staff will "ease into" using the new name.

"I told them we will continue using the old stationary until we've exhausted the supply, then we'll have more printed with the new name," he said. "We've been called this since 1965, so it's not going to happen overnight, and we don't expect it to."