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Butler Tech moves ahead with rapid expansion plan

August 11, 2017  |  Butler Tech Bioscience Campus expansion
Butler Tech Bioscience Campus expansion

Journal News

WEST CHESTER TWP.

The big changes at one of Ohio’s largest career school systems keep coming.

Though it’s less than two years old, Butler Tech’s leading edge Bioscience Center in West Chester Township is already expanding its classroom space for the upcoming 2017-2018 school year.

And school officials are moving on additional plans to add to the two-story building and adjacent class buildings to the high-profile campus overlooking Interstate 75, said school officials.

A new wing is planned by 2019 for the $16 million center, which opened in 2015, but Butler Tech officials say they are also planning additional school buildings to the 23-acre campus, which sits atop a hill just west of the I-75 and Cincinnati-Dayton Road interchange.

David Plotts, executive director of business operations for Butler Tech, stands of the roof of the Bioscience Center, from where on most days you can see the tops of downtown Cincinnati’s buildings 20 miles south, and within his gaze also envisions the school’s future.

“One of our strategic goals is to reach the greatest number of students in our community,” said Plotts. “It allows us to better serve our students and our community.”

The changes at the Bioscience Center campus – which include converting conference rooms into two new classrooms and additional classroom space at partner West Chester Medical Center - are the latest for the career school that serves nine Butler County school systems and Northwest Schools in northern Hamilton County.

The school system, which serves more than 27,000 high school – juniors and seniors - and adult students who study there on a full or part-time basis annually, is half-way through one of the busiest years in its 42-year history.

Earlier this year the Journal-News was the first to report Butler Tech’s $2.75-million purchase of a part of the old Americana Amusement Park property in Monroe to serve as an adult education campus.

Soon after Butler Tech announced for the first time in its history it will allow high school sophomores to enroll for the coming school year, adding about 80 to its classes.

Added one of the region’s first drone piloting summer camps and school-year classes to take advantage of the exploding job market in that career area.

The career school continues to add to its growing roster of corporate partners, which now number 152.

And it’s scrambling to add a new parking lot at the Bioscience campus to handle the center’s 30 percent enrollment jump.

Butler Tech Superintendent Jon Graft said the sweeping changes are by rapid by design and needed for the local economy.

“Local businesses are desperate to find these students. Manufacturers are struggling to fill great-paying jobs with advancement opportunities. In some cases, they’re even offering to pay for their college as an incentive,” said Graft. “There are more tracks out there than college “or” career, so Butler Tech is a great solution to preparing for both.”

Graft has been in office for 18 months and in that time Butler Tech has taken a more aggressive and public approach to its corporate recruitment and marketing efforts.

“Students and parents want a menu of options. They want it immediately. They want it relevant to their world. They want it to be user-friendly and capable of providing them with their desired outcome,” said Graft.

 “Butler Tech positions itself very well to meet that need. That’s why we’re trying things like Drone Camp and looking for a business partner for our Bioscience Campus. It’s why we purchased land in Monroe to give our adult students a better experience,” he said.

“Local businesses are desperate to find these students. Manufacturers are struggling to fill great-paying jobs with advancement opportunities. In some cases, they’re even offering to pay for their college as an incentive. There are more tracks out there than college or career, so Butler Tech is a great solution to preparing for both,” said Graft.

 

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