South Bend Community School officials will ask trustees to close a westside elementary school and convert its building into a long-awaited career and vocational center.
School administrators broke the news during an informational meeting Wednesday evening at the Brown Administration Building. In two weeks they’ll ask the school board to turn Coquillard Elementary into a new regional Career Hub used by students from the district and 11 other surrounding districts. Coquillard’s 300 students would be absorbed into a new K-8 school at what’s now Dickenson Intermediate, which is nearby.
The corporation is the state’s largest without a career center and has wanted one for years. Its roughly 300 career and technical education students now take vocational classes and training at scattered buildings.
School and local industry officials have been working with consultant enFocus as a steering committee for three years to find a site. In April the school board approved their request to lease a former Studebaker building but Corporation Chief Financial Officer Ahnaf Tahmid said Wednesday that they’d been unable to reach agreement on a lease with owner Kevin Smith.
The corporation has said renovating the Studebaker building would have cost about $14 million while converting Coquillard would cost about $10.4 million.
Career and Technical Education Director Chad Addie said the committee likes the Coquillard location because they expect the west side to grow and develop so much once the Amazon and GM electric battery plants are built.
"It's emerging as not a hub but it's emerging as the hub in Indiana, certainly northern Indiana and southwest Michigan, as the location to be," Addie said. "We in the education sphere, we have got to meet the demand."
No one at the meeting denied the need for a career center but several Coquillard parents and teachers urged the corporation not to close Coquillard. Tahmid said the administration will present its Coquillard recommendation to the school board Dec. 4.
