MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Monongalia County Board of Education (BOE) now has a preliminary price tag for the proposed Renaissance Academy.
A bond draft for the project was presented to the BOE earlier this month, where education architecture firm DLR Group announced that the initial cost estimates for their modernized career technical and STEM education center would be $142.6 million.
This would be paid for through a bonding order subject to a county-wide vote, with chances to lower costs through partnerships in the private sector. The 135,000-square-foot facility is aimed at including high school-aged students and adults where advanced career training and a college prep education can be merged on the same campus. It will be located just along I-79 by Blue Horizon Drive in Morgantown, within equal driving distance of all three county high schools and the Monongalia County Technical Education Center (MTEC).
“We’re really bridging that gap between high-level STEM education and significantly high-paying career technical education and job preparation for the future,” said Monongalia County School Superintendent Eddie Campbell on the goal for the Renaissance Academy.
The majority of the funding will be directed towards the construction of the 137-acre campus (approximately $91.9 million), site preparations will account for the second-most costly aspect of the project (approximately $33.1 million), with soft costs and equipment and furnishings valued at around $17.5 million and $11.4 million.
These would house a combination of open-space classrooms, workshops, STEM labs, and career- and subject-focused amenities. In an ideal situation, students with similar career paths could work together and apply learned skills to projects. This would not only include the more common career technical education pathways (hospitality, welding, architecture, and agriculture) but also the more complicated career fields that may involve a pathway toward a college education (STEM engineering, advanced robotics, and graphic design).
“They can get together, where you have somebody who is going to go to college and be an engineer, be a physicist, be whatever they’re going to be, and have the kids on site that aren’t going to college, manufacturing this stuff,” said Board President Ron Lytle. “It’s just exactly what happens in the real world,” he said.
The preliminary budget also accounts for labs that focus on information technology, law, public safety, and health sciences.
Partnerships with the private sector are expected to be crucial in how the Renaissance Academy will operate and how much public bonding will be needed. In past conversations with members of the BOE, they have stated that there are partnerships in the works with Mountaintop Beverage and Mon Health to play a hands-on role in training students heading into the workforce. The hope is that advanced job training could be applied to both career technical education and STEM career paths with the help of a private sector-influenced curriculum that could allow students to receive immediate job placement upon graduating from the county school system or a head start in their college education.
“Our hope is what will drive a lot of the curriculum, both in the STEM side as well as career technical education, will be our local industry,” said Campbell. “To say, this is what we need from your kids and we’ll work with them,” he said.
If the initial bond proposal is approved, then Monongalia County residents will be a part of a vote during 2024 primary elections in May.
If the bond were approved for the project, it would approve an increase in county school excess for a $200,000 appraised property at about $124.80 per year. Even with the opportunity for local partnerships, federal grant opportunities, and a county population that is on the rise that could lower costs for residents, members of the BOE expect it to not be an easy sell with both legislatures and voters. Despite that, they’re ready to dive headfirst and show what could be in store for the county in the near future.
“It’s going to become a huge effort moving forward to try and find them funds, identify funds, sell this not only to the taxpayers but also to people who are in charge and in control of those funds to start bringing that money towards us,” said Lytle.
An official bond vote and a final budget for the Renaissance Academy are expected to take place in January.