Tech Ed

Future Plans for Western Dakota Tech Considered

All students can benefit from various forms of technical or vocational education. For some students, these courses lead to a career. Here we look at the growing number of opportunities for students in Rapid City to learn vocational and life skills that will help make them successful after high school.

A technical high school and a new city/county library are two of the ideas that are being talked about in the context of the development of a new Master Site Plan for Western Dakota Tech. Tonight, WDT President Craig Bailey will give an update on the development of the Master Site Plan (see image), talk about the school’s effort to conduct a “Green Audit” and provide the Board with an overview of WDT’s efforts to provide training assistance to workers laid off by the closing of SCI-Sanmina this year.

The Western Dakota Tech Board of Education includes all of the members of the Rapid City Area Schools Board of Education as well as a number of ex-officio members from the community and the student body who provide advice to the RCAS School Board members.

The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, April 23, in Rooms A&B in the Mickelson Building on the WDT Campus.

For background on the continuing debate over the governance of the state’s Technical Institutes, see Barbara Soderlin’s recent article in the Rapid City Journal on April 20, 2009.