Carbon Career and Technical Institute may have just wrapped up the school year, but the Joint Operating Committee is already setting its eyes on some aspirations for next year.

Administrative director David Reinbold addressed a set of eight goals for CCTI's 2017-18 school year at Thursday night's meeting, with a focus on capitalizing on past successes and introducing new projects.Some of the directives include increasing the number of SkillsUSA competitors at the district and state competitions, maintaining an active wellness committee, keeping NOCTI and Keystone Exam scores elevated, and improving and expanding PDP - Pre, During, Post - lesson plans.One of the more unique plans includes establishing a unit on personal finance for school seniors."We have seniors who leave here who don't know how to write a check, how to balance a checking account. They might not know anything about mortgages," Reinbold said. "This is something that we've never really had. Right now we're working on getting a program from Junior Achievement."Principal Brent Borzak will be working with a representative from Junior Achievement, a nonprofit organization that delivers educational programs concerning work, entrepreneurship, and financial readiness.Other plans for the next school year include organizing and hosting an inaugural precision machining contest, establishing a middle school summer camp program, and increasing the number of nontraditional students."Nontraditional is strictly defined by gender. For example, in cosmetology, it's mostly girls. If you had a boy in cosmetology, he would be a nontraditional student," Reinbold said.Federal and state grant funding for programs that feature an increased number of nontraditional students is readily available, Reinbold said."We want to get boys up in health/medical, we want to get boys up in cosmetology, we want to get girls up in the construction areas, girls in the auto mechanic areas," he said, pointing out that some efforts for recruitment videos and events are currently in the works."These are our specific goals. We also have a lot of general goals, but these are good, specific goals that will help the school and the students," Reinbold said.Ken Walters, supervisor of buildings and grounds, presented the options for fixing or replacing the school's broken DVR system, with the board opting for a new system in the end.Walters said that the cost of replacing the complete system would be $29,922, with the option to replace just one DVR unit amounting to $13,569. However, due to the age of the equipment, it would be fairly likely that the other unit would need to be replaced sometime soon."Right now, the system is done. We're inoperable for monitoring student activities in half the building," Walters said. "To upgrade to a new system with today's technology is just about $1,000 more than the existing two units would be to replace."In addition to more advanced technology and a longer shelf life, the new Genetec Omnicast system from Allentown's CSI: Integrated Security and Communications would be capable of handling about 200 cameras, as opposed to the current system's 64 cameras.