The Pella Community School District is helping to kick start the Future Ready Iowa Initiative.

Director of K-12 Instruction Lowell Ernst tells KNIA/KRLS News the district was approached by the state’s STEM Board to help pioneer a welding apprenticeship with Vermeer Corporation and other area businesses through the Career Academy of Pella. Ernst says the apprenticeships–which will be expanded to nursing, culinary arts, and engineering over the next year, give students a new direction and choice to get into rewarding careers.

The Future Ready Iowa Initiative, passed on a unanimous, bipartisan effort in the Iowa Legislature, aims to get 70 percent of Iowa’s workforce to have some level of training or education beyond high school.