Centralia High School’s Board of Education approved a plan for next year’s Building Trade class to expand to three periods to facilitate a new program where students will construct a home on a city-owned plot.
Superintendent Dr. Chuck Lane says plans call for the home to be sold when finished and the proceeds used to repeat the process.
“A really good partnership we have now with the city of Centralia, where they donated some land to us over on Melrose Street. Our building trades class can actually go out there and build a home. It’s a really great opportunity for our kids. We’re going to spend the first three hours of the day with those kids out there with Mr. (Chris) Tyberendt, building an actual home. And then at the end of the year, when we sell it, then we’d use the profits from that then to reinvest and take another project from the city to build another house. So just a really good win-win for the city, for the school, and for the kids.”
The board also listened to a report by Dr. Lane concerning the Annex and solar construction plans at the school:
“We continue with our plans to add the four classrooms to the annex. We are getting some of the soil borings done now, and getting the plans ready so we can bid it, hopefully within about a month. Then on the other end, the solar project is progressing. They’ve been out there doing some site
work, doing some soil borings there as well. Everything is still on track to be done within 10 to 12 months.”
The plans for the solar project look for completion within a year, while the Annex addition is expected before the start of the next school year.
Lane says the teacher shortage in Illinois has area colleges and universities, according to Lane, looking to work with existing staff to make it easier to become teachers:
“So some exciting stuff that’s going on right now with the teacher shortage is a lot of the universities are looking to amend some of their plans to where people with bachelor’s degrees but without education classes with it can now go in and become teachers. So they’re going to
they’re going to make it cheaper and more affordable and easier to do. So that will do something probably to help us alleviate the teacher shortage.”
In other action, the board approved the 2023-24 school calendar,; and moved to accept the letter of resignation from Emily Kracht-Haake as CEO facilitator, effective at the end of the 2022-2023 school year; and to accept the letter of resignation from Lachelle Tate as a full-time annex aide, effective April 1, 2023.
The board also moved to accept the letter of resignation from Clifford Meadows as assistant bass fishing coach effective March 22, 2023; to employ Sophie Townsend as a science teacher for 2023-2024
the school year, and to employ Alan Mitchell as full-time custodian effective March 20, 2023.
