WAYNE and PIKE COUNTIES, PA — A proposed Wayne-Pike Career and Technical Center (CTC) could see its first students as early as August 2027, according to the project team. 

While permitting and construction work still needs to be done for the $52.8 million dollar building, the project team feels “comfortable with the two-year schedule for completion,” they told the Wallenpaupack Area School District Board of Education during a Monday, June 9 presentation. 

Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs offer hands-on experience in crucial vocational skills alongside standard academic classes. While school districts in Wayne and Pike counties have CTE programs, such as Wallenpaupack’s aviation program, the counties are the only two in Pennsylvania that don’t have a dedicated CTC. 

The Wayne-Pike CTC brings together the CTE programs of three school districts: Wallenpaupack, Wayne-Highlands and Western Wayne. Other districts, such as Delaware Valley and Stroudsburg, will have the opportunity to send students to the CTC as well. 

Consolidation and custom spaces

The new building will bring 13 CTE programs from across Wayne and Pike counties under one specially designed roof. A 14th program, the Honesdale High School Horticulture program, will remain where it is, though all students will have access to it. 

The move will have significant benefits for those CTE programs, according to the project team.

The CTE programs in the three participating school districts are currently housed in normal school buildings wherever they fit, in spaces not specially designed for those purposes, said Kevin Godshall, principal architect with GKO Architects, the firm designing the CTC. 

The new building will have more space for the CTC programs, including outdoors workshops for those programs that would benefit from them. 

Additionally, the move will give students easier access to greater educational opportunities. 

Currently, if students want to learn from another district’s CTE programs, they have to transition between districts, said Godshall. “What we’re trying to do with the career center is correct that, so there would be a central career center where no student would have to make a decision between their high school career, their high school experience, and the career that want to pursue.”

Students would come to the CTC via shuttle either for morning classes or for afternoon classes. Either way, they would eat lunch at their “home” school district, allowing them that time to connect with friends and their home district’s social scene. 

Additionally, while the CTC will be located on Wallenpaupack’s campus, near the middle school, it will be demarcated by positioning and landscaping so that it feels like a neutral site. 

The team wants to make sure that “every student who attends this facility can call this facility home,” said Godshall. 

What will it cost

The building construction has a price tag of $52.8 million, much of which will be funded through grants or sponsorships. An estimate for the CTC’s ongoing revenues and expenses came in at $1.3 million in revenue and $4.7 million in expenses, according to the project team. However, they said those figures would change as districts made specific policy decisions. 

The new building will allow for some efficiencies, as the districts will be able to pool their resources and avoid offering the same programs in different locations. 

It will also allow the districts to keep the programs that they offer fully enrolled; according to the project team, not every CTE program offered currently has full enrollment, and overall enrollment trends for the districts are trending downwards. 

A crucial project

Speaking at the June 9 meeting, Wallenpaupack superintendent Keith Gunuskey emphasized the importance of the CTC for the district’s students. 

“I think when we talk about funding, we talk about and we ask the question, ‘What does it cost, what does it cost?’ I think the feasibility study asks another question, and that question is, ‘What is it going to cost us if we don’t do this?’”

Gunuskey said that he has had multiple meetings with the economic development corporations of Wayne and Pike counties. The number one question they’re hearing from businesses coming into the area is, “Do you have a trained workforce?”, he said. 

“I’m excited at this opportunity,” he said. “There’s a reason why 65 counties out of 67 have this, and why Wayne and Pike don’t, and we’re looking to change that. We really need to finish the job in the state of Pennsylvania, to give our students, and all students of Wayne and Pike counties, the same opportunities that students are experiencing throughout the state.”