Skills Center Fully Funded By State

WAITSBURG - The state legislature recently approved $10.35 million to build the Southeast Area Skills Center at Walla Walla Community College that will hopefully allow its doors to open for Dayton, Prescott, Waitsburg, Touchet and Walla Walla students in the summer of 2014.

The goal of the skills center is to enroll students in technical education to make them employable upon graduation. It will not cost families extra for students to attend.

"This is to provide opportunities for kids who wanted to be ready after graduation," said Doug Johnson, the superintendent of the Dayton School District.

During last year's session, the state approved $1.5 million that was used to design the building that would contain four different technical education classrooms. High school juniors and seniors will be able to gain technical education in construction, welding and manufacturing, natural resources and health care services. The programs that will be offered have been chosen based on the needs in the local job market, Johnson said.

The center will be a subsidiary of a larger skills center in the Tri Cities, said Mick Miller, the superintendent of the Walla Walla School District. It will be built on land leased by Walla Walla Community College.

Miller said he was a bit surprised at how quickly they obtained money for the project. He believed they would be one legislative cycle slower with the funding.

Johnson credited the approval for funding to Sen. Mike Hewitt from Walla Walla, who was a primary advocate for the project.

When it is open, the center will employ four teachers, one classified staff member, a lead teacher and a principal, or more, Miller said. And to start out, it will be able to enroll 120 to 160 students. Five spots will be given to each of the smaller schools and Walla Walla High School will get to send the most.

An application process will likely be created to determine who the five students are who will get to attend.

Johnson said the students would spend half of the school day at their home school and then half of the day at the skills center.

Obtaining and completing all of the necessary credits to graduate and attending the skills center may be more challenging at the smaller schools because many classes are only offered once a day, Johnson added. Those juniors and seniors who are taking classes at the skills center may need to participate in summer school or online classes to earn all of the credits required to graduate on time, Johnson said.

Transportation may also be tricky. It would be too expensive for the small districts to bus the five over to the community college each day, Johnson said. So, like those students enrolled in Running Start classes at the college, they will likely have to find their own transportation.

The design is ready to go and it will take from now until summertime to prepare all of the construction documents, Miller said. The project should go out to bid in July and ground could be broken at the site at Walla Walla Community College for the new building in late September or early October. Construction may take as many as 14 months, he said. Miller hopes to have staff members hired and an open house organized to enroll students for summer school in 2014 and have it be completely open and operating fall of 2014.