PERRYSBURG – Penta Career Center is moving forward with adding classroom space, this time in Lucas County.
The career center board at its Sept. 13 meeting awarded a contract to KCS Contracting to demo the interior of the new property in Holland.
KCS, of Holland, had the low bid of $53,800.
A little over $1 million was used to purchase the former office space at 1205 Corporate Dr.
Doing the early demo should mean there are no surprises later on, said Treasurer Michael Harrigan.
The board also awarded a contract to Garland/DBS in the amount of $316,885 to install a new roof on the building.
The career center purchased the building with the intent to repurpose it into lab and classroom space.
The 16,000-squre-foot facility will become a space for additional manufacturing, health care and IT programming for both adults and students, said Superintendent Ed Ewers.
The goal is to expand regional programming similar to what is being done with the senior-only industrial maintenance program in Bowling Green, he said.
Classes now being taught at Penta’s main campus will not be moved to the Holland location.
Ewers said he continues to wait to learn about Penta’s application for career and technical education expansion funding.
He said the career center is asking for $4 million to add flexible lab space on the Perrysburg campus.
Enrollment is around 1,700 students, not counting those in satellite sites. The building is designed to hold 1,600.
Historically, up to 12% of students who apply don’t make it to campus, but this year it is about 5%.
“Even though we always have fall off as far as enrollment, the percentage of students who have chosen not to come to us between July and September is a smaller percentage,” Ewers said.
Off-campus numbers will boost enrollment to 5,000 or more, he said.
“If you really think about the impact we’re having … you can see that in our historical numbers,” he said.
Also at the meeting, the board:
Approved an amendment to the 2023-24 school calendar to cancel classes on April 8, when there will be a full eclipse. Classes will be made up on May 24 in order to not impact days of instruction.
Welcomed 13 new staff members.
Learned that there were 806 adults enrolled last year in the Aspire program, which provides GED preparation.
Heard an update on the summer STEM Camp from Christine May and Branden May.
