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It may be vogue for every parent to simply usher their children off to university without them having a specific career in mind, often resulting in drop-outs and aimlessness.

Lorenzo Walker Technical High School has an excellent compromise, says Principal Jeannette Johnson, because it can prepare students for solid technical careers as well as provide a perfect springboard for those students who indeed opt for college.

Johnson, speaking at a Breakfast Before Business gathering sponsored by the Marco Island Area Chamber of Commerce, said either way the advantages are obvious.

Non-university candidates become skilled in a technical profession, while potential university students go in with better specific hands-on grounding than they might have gleaned from the regular, broad school curriculum.

Extremely pertinent these days in the case of students looking for technical careers, Johnson said, is that over the past 40 years the demand for skilled labor has overtaken that of non-skilled labor, while the demand for professional skills has remained constant.

By far the biggest demand (60 percent) is for skilled workers, with unskilled and professional percentages sharing 20 percent respectively.

Johnson said Lorenzo Walker students have the advantage of going “hands-on” in their subjects.

Courses include nursing, auto technician training, a culinary school, cosmetology, massage therapy, aviation technology and a fire fighting program, while noticeably absent, Johnson said, are sports and a school band.

“There’s nothing wrong with those programs (in regular high schools),” Johnson said, “but we have a specific mission to fulfill.”

Also healthy for the local economy, she added, is the fact that the vast majority of students stay local and become members of the local workforce.

People are welcome to tour the facility, which also offers the Lorenzo Walker Technical Institute (for older students). Contact number is 377-0900.