SANDPOINT — The Lake Pend Oreille School District’s new 12,000-square-foot career technical education facility is beginning to take shape on the south side of Sandpoint High School.

The building will provide a customized, significantly larger home for four existing programs at SHS: residential carpentry, sports medicine, computer network support, and nursing assistance. Additionally, the school will be adding an automotive shop program at a later date. 

Alex Gray, CTE director at SHS, previously told the Daily Bee that the CTE Center will be revolutionary for the involved programs. One of the biggest rooms in the facility will house the school’s health professions class, which helps students become certified nursing assistants, and the sports medicine class. 

Gray said the CNA class is currently being taught in a converted sewing room and will not have the room for a traditional classroom and four nursing beds. 

“Right now, when she's instructing, students are sitting on the hospital beds, sitting on the lab equipment,” Gray said. “It's a distraction. It's not what the equipment should be used for. So, this is a much better space for that class.” 

In a similar vein, the residential carpentry space will allow for more opportunities for students. Gray said the new garage doors will make moving projects the students are working on in and out of the building significantly easier. 

The $4.9 million building is primarily funded by a $3.5 million Idaho Career Ready Students grant from the Idaho Department of Education, as well as public funds, according to LPOSD’s Chief Financial and Operations Officer Brian Wallace. LPOSD Superintendent Dr. Becky Meyer said while the building is attached to SHS, it will have its own identity. 

“It has its own logo ... see it has a certain entrance,” Meyer said. “Some students might do homeschooling and just come here for their electives for CTE, that is totally how it was designed." 

During a tour of the facility, Gray said the automotive program will not open alongside the rest of the facility next school year, as the school seeks a partnership with a global brand.  

“We are looking for national partnerships, like through either Subaru, Chevy, Ford, somebody and modeling it after [Kootenai Technical Education Campus],” Gray said. “At K Tech, a lot of the students they already have a job lined up before they leave.” 

Members of the Sandpoint Kiwanis Club, which is donating a four-post car lift to the automotive program, joined the tour. When members asked Gray why the shop wouldn’t be starting with the rest of the facility, he said the program is on a slow rollout to ensure the district finds the right teacher to set it up for success. 

Both Gray and Meyer spoke on the difficulty of finding teachers for CTE programs. Meyer said the position is demanding because the teacher not only needs to be an expert in an ever-evolving field but also to relate that to students. 

“It's not easy to be a teacher,” Meyer said. “So, it is difficult to find the right person and then the icing on the cake is you’re getting paid less than what you made when you’re working. So, what we're looking for is somebody is passionate, yes, they like kids and they want to keep their profession going by having a legacy and passing it down.” 

In addition to the spaces for the programs, the facility has two standard classrooms. These will house Gray’s information systems technology classes and potentially the school’s new JROTC program. 

“I have looked up over bald men's heads for the past 23 years, and now I get to look up closer to Baldy [Mountain] over there," Gray said while pointing to the widows in his new classroom.” 

The new CTE facility is on track to open next school year, with construction being completed by June, according to LPOSD’s Facilities Director, Matt Diel. He said the new furniture for the facility is arriving in the middle of June.

    (L-R) Lake Pend Oreille School District Superintendent Dr. Becky Meyer and Sandpoint High School Principal Jacki Crossingham answer questions on a tour of the new Career Technical Education Center.
  

    Sandpoint High School CTE Director Alex Gray stands in what is to be his new classroom in the Career Technical Education Center.
  

    Inside the room set to become the home to Sandpoint High School's residential carpentry program in the Career Technical Education Center.