MORGANTOWN — December will be here before you know it, Eddie Campbell Jr. said Wednesday.
And the superintendent of Monongalia County’s school district wasn’t even talking about the off-and-on flurries which dusted the region during the late April morning.
Rather, he was referencing the next bidding cycle of the state School Building Authority, the Charleston entity which doles the dollars for new buildings and other infrastructure improvements in education across West Virginia’s 55 counties.
The SBA earlier this week closed the door on Mon’s $1.6 million request to add new classrooms to the Technical Education Center on Mississippi Street.
The three classrooms, which would have a combined space of more 7,500 square feet, were planned for the enhanced study of robotics, pre-engineering and e-gaming.
Campbell envisioned bright, spacious work areas, brimming with the latest high-tech equipment (provided by hosts or participating sponsors) to help make goals happen.
He still does, he said.
“We’re gonna sit down, and we’re gonna start talking,” he said.
That’s because there’s a lot to talk about.
The projected high-tech learning areas, the superintendent said, are set to be the opening act for a new generation of STEM – the academic and hands-on studies of science, technology, engineering and math.
That’s because they would essentially retrofit the center as a standalone tech center for STEM, as geared to middle school students.
Students, who would then go on to learn and work at The Renaissance Academy, a $72 million, STEM high school that the district would like to see built in the next 10 years through its newly updated Comprehensive Education Facilities Plan.
State code requires county school systems to write a CEFP every 10 years. The plans aren’t set in stone, but they point the direction the county expects to go over the next decade.
The 2010-20 document saw the construction of Eastwood Elementary, the county’s first environmentally friendly school.
A new University High School was the centerpiece of the one before that.
STEM will be star of the CEFP that will guide the district through 2030, Campbell said.
And that, he said, means those robotics, pre-engineering and e-gaming classrooms at the current tech center.
Campbell said the district can choose to resubmit to the SBA in December.
Or, he said, monies can be reallocated from within the budget.
“We aren’t going to abandon it,” he said. “It’s still our priority project for 2021.”
The SBA in the meantime, awarded a collective $74.9 million to seven school projects across the state.
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