Big numbers
Butler Tech has 825 students on the D. Russel Lee campus, which draws from 11 different school districts, and 469 of them are juniors. That number tops last year’s junior class of 391 students; the current senior class is 356.
“There’s an attraction with the millennial students,” Principal Lisa Tuttle-Huff said. “They want the awareness of what those 21st-century skills are. They want to be able to do things like multi-task and use technology, and use that as part of their education. They know those things impact their education, and they know they’re going to be engaged.”
Tuttle-Huff partly attributes the increase in numbers to the health and science students returning to the D. Russel Lee campus after a six-year partnership with Warren County, where those students were part of the Greentree Health Science Academy in Monroe.
Last year was the first year back on campus for the Health Science Program, which benefited from a $21 million renovation that added 16 academic classrooms and eight labs.
“It’s rewarding for me every day, and I don’t say that lightly,” Tuttle-Huff said. “Every morning when I walk in the door, I see on their faces that they want to be here. That’s what every principal wants to see on a child’s face. It’s nice to see the teachers engaging with the students, and it’s good to see the students being challenged. When that happens, it all comes together.”
Satellite courses provide head start
Two Butler Tech programs — Exercise Science/Sports Medicine and Digital Media Arts — are being taught at Lakota East as satellite courses.
Nikki Drew — also the girls basketball coach at Lakota East — is the instructor for the Exercise Science/Sports Medicine program, and she teaches five classes a day with about 28 juniors and seniors in each session.
“Right now, it is a general allied health professional idea, which means anybody who wants to pursue nursing, physical therapy, athletic training — ideally, the class is made for them,” Drew said. “It’s for them to get a head start into their careers.”
Prior to this year, the class was a Lakota East exercise science elective. Now completely funded by Butler Tech, Drew has taping tables, free weights, treadmills and other workout equipment in her second-floor classroom.
Students also are participating in internships at Atrium clinics, exercise science facilities and with Lakota East athletic teams.
“It’s pretty cool to teach kids who are interested in this,” Drew said. “They all chose to be in here and they’re excited to be in here. It’s a positive.”
After eight years at Talawanda and dwindling numbers, Butler Tech moved its Digital Media Arts program to Lakota East, where the course has 75 total students in its five classes.
“A lot of what we do is television production and learning how to communicate via digital images,” said instructor Joe O’Flynn. “Right now, we’re starting the kids on the basic foundation subject areas — photography, fonts to use, communication through still photos — and we’ll move along to moving images.”
O’Flynn has two classrooms at his disposal, and they feature furniture (recliner, futon, rocking chair), a dining room table and a coffee table, as well as desks and chairs. Students are required to complete 160 internship hours over the two-year program.
“I want it to feel like a production place, like the real world,” O’Flynn said. “These kids are fantastic. They’re really hard-working kids and I really love working with them.”
The goal is to have a high definition studio built by the first of the year, which would cost at least $50,000 for cameras and a teleprompter, and be all paid for by Butler Tech. Lighting, some sound and the basic structure are already in place.
Land will be site of bioscience hub
Back in 2008, Butler Tech paid $1.8 million for 24 acres of land near the southwest corner of Cincinnati-Dayton and I-75.
Butler Tech officials are currently in the early stages of discussion with its stakeholders to look at what the needs are in the local bioscience industries, and that will affect the type of programs and campus facilities built at the site, said Bill Solazzo, Butler Tech’s Director of Marketing and Communications.
“It’s such a broad field, and we certainly realize we can’t do it all,” Solazzo said. “We want to make sure we’re really focusing in on the area of greatest need. We think this has wonderful potential.”
Solazzo said it will be another “three to four years” before construction begins.
“It’s hard to say how big the campus will be and how many students it will serve,” he said. “We’re still working that out with the groups we’re dealing with.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5113 or Steven. Matthews@coxinc.com.
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