Keeping costs down could be a lot more difficult for vo-tech schools if not for corporations. Automakers, for example, regularly donate the latest models to vo-tech mechanics classes. Another beneficiary of corporate largess is Venango County Vo-Tech School in Oil City. International Paper has donated to the school the oil and mineral rights on a 115-acre tract. Schaffner's students learn a variety of skills operating 18 small oil wells, which don't produce enough to attract corporate attention.
Students learn welding, pipefitting, carpentry, how to operate a bulldozer and more.
He also tries to instill independent thinking by forcing the teen-agers to decide for themselves how to fix a faltering pump or balking engine. Oil and natural gas extraction, refining and transport employed about 19,000 people in Pennsylvania in 1996, the Independent Petroleum Association of America reported. Last year, only two of Schaffner's students entered the industry, one as a driller and the other as a puller. Still, many other students find the well-rounded course helps their employment opportunities. Student John Fulton hoped to get a job at Joy Mining Machinery in nearby Franklin, where his uncle works as a guard.