The Renaissance Academy inched a couple of notches closer to reality Tuesday night.
That’s the working name of a planned $72 million, standalone high school for career and technical education in Monongalia County’s school district.
The building is the planned centerpiece of the district’s 2020-30 Comprehensive Education Facilities Plan, or CEFP, a paradigm-shifting, dice-roll updated every 10 years.
Call the CEFP an operator’s manual of district doings, heavy on both the practical and visionary sides.
Eastwood Elementary, the county’s only official environmentally friendly green school, for example, was the linchpin of the 2010-20 edition.
While earth has yet to be turned on the academy, Mon Board of Education members Tuesday night heard from an architectural firm specializing in the construction of such schools and the community partnerships needed to make them work.
At the invitation of Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr., a team from the DLR Group made a presentation, highlighting similar schools its firm designed in Missouri, Colorado and Arizona.
The firm, which was founded in Omaha, Neb., in 1966, now has offices across the U.S. and overseas.
Dramatic, swooping designs with lots of chrome, glass and open areas were aesthetic signatures of the schools the team discussed, but, as one DLR architect and consultant stressed, it’s not about the design.
“It’s about your students,” said Pam Loeffelman, of the firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
“Some students know they don’t want to go to college. Some want to join the military.”
At the Colorado school highlighted in the presentation, Loeffelman talked about one culinary student whose goal is to have a fleet of food trucks.
The student now taking courses in automotive technology and business entrepreneurship there as she works toward that goal.
Another teacher at that same school launched another program, where students in carpentry and trades classes are learning to build tiny houses for Denver’s homeless community.
BOE President Nancy Walker invited the group back for another work session in the future.
In other matters related to infrastructure, the board discussed the excess levy for education, which voters overwhelming passed in a special election last September.
The renewed levy is expected to bring close to $32 million to district coffers, Treasurer Nicole Kemper said.
That money goes to fund technology and the salaries of counselors and school nurses, among other line items.
BOE members are expected to approve tax property rates, which remained the same for the last levy, at a special meeting next month.
The board also viewed a short video highlighting music programs at Morgantown High School, University High and Suncrest Middle. All three schools received top honors at the recent state Music Educator Conference in Charleston.
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