The career center has not yet determined the price tag for the proposed expansions, Superintendent Dave Deskins said, though construction on the culinary addition could begin as soon as next summer. The career center is pursuing funding through philanthropy and business partnerships, “rather than relying on state revenue” or a levy ballot issue, he said.
“The expansion... is, for the culinary program, really for a couple reasons,” Deskins said. “Number one, it will allow us to increase student enrollment in that program.”
The expansion would allow the center to accept 40 new students in its culinary school, he said.
The culinary arts program runs a student-led restaurant during the week. Career center students catered more than 65 events last year, Deskins said, with parties ranging from a dozen to about 350 people.
The additional space would allow for more catered events during the day, which is part of the students’ hands-on learning, he said.
Secondly, the career center would build a separate building that would house a “public service center,” including its health science programs, sports and exercise science programs, veterinary science, and others.
The district recently purchased 23 acres of land adjacent to the career center, that will “likely” be the site of the new center, Deskins said, adding that health sciences has the largest number of students of any programs offered there.
“Currently in Ohio, health care is the number one job market need,” Deskins said. “Health care is number two in the Dayton/Miami Valley region behind manufacturing, so trying to keep our focus on any growth that we do, aligning to what the job market tells us is the highest market need, we think that following that data is really important.”
Lastly, the district is looking to create a “children’s career center,” where kids in kindergarten through eighth grade can learn about career center trades. The goal is to show children what kind of careers and jobs are out there for them to explore, Deskins said.
“As a kid, I knew what my mom and dad did and what my doctor did and my teacher and the police and fire did,” Deskins said. “But I really didn’t know of any other type of career pathway because I just didn’t have exposure to it. We believe that addressing the long-range workforce challenges in the state (means) we have to do a better job of exposing students to career and technical pathways at much younger grade levels.”
The children’s career center would not only be open to children in Greene County, but kids across the Dayton region for field trips, parent resources, and other things, he said.
“We’re seeing some data around the state that’s suggestive of the fact that approximately 90,000 high school seniors are graduating high school, they’re not registered to go to college, they don’t have any kind of certification, credential, or competency for a career,” Deskins said. “They don’t know what things they might like or what things they may want to do. And this, we believe, is a way to help give those students some exposure to those different opportunities.”
Other expansions to the Greene County Career Center are already in motion. The career center received $500,000 from the Cincinnati-based Charles Shore Foundation to nearly double the number of students that can be part of its popular welding program.
Over the summer, the career center added 20 welding stations, equipment, underlying infrastructure, and hired one new teacher for the welding program, bringing the number of students that can be taught from 50 to 90.
Some of the money will also be used to acquire training simulators, which will allow younger visiting students to see what it’s like to learn welding safely.
The career center revealed its ambitions to roughly a hundred local business leaders last week.
“We believe that high tides raise all ships,” Deskins said. “And if we’re escalating the quality of kids that we’re putting out into all of these industries, all of our businesses locally are going to better perform and have better success.”
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