Usually, the Butler County Area Vocational-Technical School prepares students to work in trade professions, but upcoming training will instead prepare guidance counselors to shepherd students into those programs at the school.

The event is a STEM training and tour of local manufacturers for 30 to 40 school counselors in Butler County high schools and the vo-tech, according to Regina Hiler, the vo-tech’s executive director. The two-day training in June will focus on the machine technology program at the vo-tech.

Hiler said the training will lead the counselors in attendance on a tour of the program as well as two local manufacturers who hire students from the vo-tech. According to Hiler, the machine technology program “yields high-priority occupations focusing on manufacturing.”

“Counselors will see the current and future benefits of their students attending the machine technology program or another STEM-related program,” Hiler said. “They will tour our leading industry facilities — Penn United Technologies and Oberg Industries — to understand the opportunities that are available for their students now and in the future.”

Students enrolled in the machine learning program get experience in blueprint reading, precision grinding and lathe operation, and using milling machines, drill presses, band saws, and computer controlled milling and turning.

Hiler said counselors who attend the training also will experience for themselves some of the educational activities students undergo in the machine technology program at the vo-tech. Giving counselors firsthand experience, Hiler said, can help them better direct students to technical programs.

“The counselors will take home a project that they will design and create,” Hiler said. “They will learn ways to enrich their students’ career pathways through STEM opportunities.”