D91 consider options for future of Career Technical Education Center

IDAHO FALLS – A local school district is weighing multiple options for what to do once the lease on one of its buildings expires, including potentially moving its operations onto the same campus as one of its high schools.

At its Tuesday work-session meeting, the Idaho Falls School District 91 Board of Trustees heard a variety of options from administrators on what to do once its lease on the building currently housing the Career Technical Education Center expires. The board asked administrators to conduct further research on some of those options, including taking on the cost of staying in the building and moving the CTEC into the same building as Compass Academy.

“We want to be really clear that no decisions have been made at this point. This is a preliminary phase where we’re doing research, trying to figure out what options we have that would be the best for students and families and for our teachers and staff,” said district spokesman Maren Archibald.

CTEC offers a range of career and technical education, with classes in automotive technology, welding and construction, all the way to digital communications, graphic design and cybersecurity. Students who take these courses attend the center only part-time while attending a district regular high school full-time.

The way Archibald explained it, the district is preparing for the expiration of the five-year lease on the building at 450 East Street in December. At that point, the district would need to pay rent on the building directly, as the current lease was funded through COVID-related monies.

During the work session, the board asked administrators to do more research on a few options, which are to:

• Take on the cost of staying in the current building.
• Build a new building for CTEC.
• Rezone the elementary schools, and move CTEC into the building currently housing Compass Academy, and move Compass into the Hawthorne Elementary School building.
• Move CTEC onto the same campus as Compass Academy.

Archibald stresses that this is the very beginning of the process, and that no one involved in the planning has yet made up their mind on what the best solution is.

In regard to the idea about rezoning, Archibald said, “The board wasn’t really excited about that one, because we have a lot of loyalty in Idaho Falls to schools and tradition … and we want to make a choice that benefits the students and also benefits the community.”

And in regards to building a new building, “that is a different financial burden than using an existing building, or purchasing an existing building, but building a new one is also something that they thought about.”

Compass Academy, a “magnet” high school in the district with a project-based learning model, is located at 955 Garfield Street. Archibald said that if CTEC were to move onto the same campus as Compass, they would remain as separate entities, with different sets of administrators and teachers.

Archibald said the board asked administrators to do “a deeper dive into those specific options,” and then to present the research to them to help make a better-informed decision.

While the next meeting where the board can make official votes is scheduled for March 11, the board won’t be voting for any option yet.

And Achibald also stressed that the district will gather community feedback on these options. More details about how to provide that feedback will follow.

“We want to hear from our students, our families, other community members, to make sure that we make the best decision that we can, that supports students, and is financially responsible,” Archibald said.