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Two Collier County vocational centers are turning to businesses to create real-world career experiences on campus when classes start next year.

Immokalee Technical Center is slated to open in January. The second phase of Lorenzo Walker Institute of Technology and Technical High School’s $38 million campus overhaul off Estey Avenue in Naples is scheduled to open by fall 2009.

So now, the heads of both schools are in the early stages of establishing business partnerships that would enhance the hands-on learning experience for students.

Vocational schools around the country turn to businesses to provide internships, but not all have on-site storefronts where students can transition quickly between classroom and on-the-job learning.

With less time traveling to internships, especially for people in Immokalee to get to Naples or Fort Myers, students can spend more time learning the job alongside professionals in the offices and storefronts.

“Sometimes young people don’t see what they can do. They think, ‘I graduate, but what am I trained for?’” Dorin Oxender, Immokalee Technical Center (ITech) principal, said of the benefit of career training at vocational schools.

Oxender and Lorenzo Walker (LWIT) Principal Jeanette Johnson are looking to partner with Collier County businesses to expand training options.

The first floor of the ITech building will resemble a strip mall, with window displays and signs designed by multimedia design students.

The site-based businesses there will include a salon for cosmetology students, a restaurant and coffee shop for the culinary arts track, a mechanic shop for the automotive service technology students to work on cars brought in by the public, and a preschool for early childhood education students.

“It’s easier to bring the client to the school rather than send the students out,” Johnson said.

Neither school has confirmed partnerships, yet.

However, Collier Health Services Inc. is in discussions with ITech to open a medical office at the new school.

Mike Ellis, director of corporate development for Collier Health, anticipates a final decision by late September.

They are negotiating what the space would look like before finalizing the partnership.

Like other Collier County locations of the private, nonprofit medical provider, Ellis said there will be two physicians there five or six days a week and a sliding fee scale will be in place.

ITech students studying nursing would get hands-on experience in the family practice assisting doctors and nurses with physicals and checkups, while those on the medical assistant track would help wtih bookkeeping.

Similarly, LWIT is considering opening a dental care office. However, no partnership with a dentist has been established.

One idea is to run a low-cost dental clinic for people who need affordable dental care, Johnson said.

But teaming up with a dentist – or a bank, as Johnson also wants for the school’s finance and accounting students – will depend heavily on how much time and personnel the partners want to invest onsite.

Collaboration with private enterprise need not be financial; advising on curricula, sharing training materials, mentoring students, and lending brand recognition to a store are all possible partnerships, according to Oxender.

“(Partnerships) are not necessarily to defray costs. It’s to embed students in real world business. We’re good, we know how to teach. But the partners know what’s needed in the markets now and know what the workforce in this area needs,” Oxender said.

Behind the scenes, the multimedia design, accounting, and legal assistant students at ITech will be working on running and promoting the stores.

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At LWIT, the new complex will add and expand storefronts for the thousands of high school and adult students who enroll; current annual numbers are 1,300 to 1,400 daytime students and 2,000 to 3,000 night school attendees.

The cosmetology storefront, for example, was 3,800 square feet in the old building; it now will be about 6,000 square feet.

The previous offices and stores at LWIT were scattered throughout the campus, creating safety concerns for school officials. In the new building, all of the publically accessible facilities will be in one area to keep visitors separate from the rest of the campus.

The challenge of incorporating businesses into class work is scheduling, and both Johnson and Oxender are unsure of when the shops would be open to the public.

Moreover, the services available depend on the curriculum, which for customers means not always being able to get a facial or a massage in the cosmetology area.

Clients are restricted to what’s being taught at the moment.

“The goal is not to be a salon, but to give (students) real-world experience. It’s also a way to allow us to sustain the program and offset high costs to make it affordable to the student,” Johnson said.

At ITech, Oxender said that at a storefront like the one for mechanics, one solution may be to announce to the public that there will be a limited number of oil changes or tune-ups, and that clients will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Although the instability of the schedule may be off-putting, the fees charged to the public for services may be less than elsewhere. The fees aren’t to make money for the school, but rather to cover the cost of the products used.

“We’re not for profit, we just want to recuperate the cost of running the program,” she said.

Oxender also says any net gain at ITech will be retained within the program.

Significant completion of ITech is expected by Oct. 31. Currently, 230 Immokalee High School students are dual enrolled and 750 adults will attend day and evening classes throughout the year.

Additionally, 250 people are enrolled in evening ESOL and GED courses.

Oxender expects the school to be fully functional in January; several courses are already in session at the Bethune center in Immokalee, and the students will transfer to the new campus.

High school classes at LWIT will begin in the new building when classes start in the fall; the new career facilities like the storefronts will not open until fall 2009.