Utica Shale Academy Superintendent Bill Watson, pictured at left, welcomed John Carey, director of the Ohio Department of Development’s Governor’s Office of Appalachia, during a tour of the Salineville campus and the site of a planned two-story facility June 7. The project received a $2.35 million grant through the GOA and will be the third USA site to offer programming for at-risk students and the community. Bids are being taken for construction with work eyed over the next few months. (Submitted photo)
SALINEVILLE – State officials got a glimpse of the Utica Shale Academy’s planned expansion site during a visit to the campus in Salineville on June 7.
John Carey, director of the Ohio Department of Development’s Governor’s Office of Appalachia, was joined by GOA representatives as well as officials from the Ohio Department of Education, Ohio Mid-Eastern Governments Association (OMEGA), Sustainable Opportunity Development (SOD) Center of Salem and Southern Local School District to view the community school and career-tech offerings and USA Superintendent Bill Watson also unveiled designs for a new, $4.8 million building along East Main Street. The GOA awarded an Appalachian Community Grant totaling $2,356,417 to erect a two-story building adjacent to the original community school in the Hutson Building at 70 E. Main St. while USA leveraged nearly half the costs with two $600,000 equity grants and Emergency Elementary and Secondary School Relief (ESSER) funds.
Watson said the new structure will include nearly 5,100 square feet of space for offices, classrooms, machinery, virtual welding equipment, lockers and restrooms for students working with heavy equipment operation and CNC plasma cutting. Two older buildings were razed to create some space while a separate 2,800-square-foot outdoor welding lab is also onsite. He noted that the project has been put out to bid and hopes are to begin construction over the next few months.
“We’re looking [to begin] at the end of July or early August and the
new building will be ready for Fiscal Year 2025,” Watson added. “I’m ready for the project post-COVID. The hardest part of the expansion during COVID were the supply chain issues and other shutdowns. I’m really looking forward to starting from scratch.
“This is a phenomenal opportunity and I believe this grant will is a benefit for small, rural Appalachian schools. I’m glad we were fortunate to receive it.”
He said the program has grown to the point that the senior class was full and more students weren’t accepted in January, plus about 150 students have graduated over the past three years. Watson cited the hard work of the staff for USA’s success and said it will even more.
Carey and other officials applauded USA for its fortitude and said the benefits were far-reaching.
“It will expand the program and there is a real push for workforce across the United States,” said Carey. “If we can have a more skilled workforce, it means more economic development in the region. The mission of the Utica Shale Academy is to help people become successful in a non-traditional way and this will be a win for the workforce, but it will also be a win for those who take advantage of it.”
“I’m blown away,” said Sheila Vitale, director of the Office of School Sponsorship for the ODE. “They’ve done an amazing job for the community and these kids. It gives these students a goal and they have their future ahead of them. It’s turned their lives around.”
“It’s great to see how the school is doing it,” added Warren Glen, who represented the Office of School Sponsorship. “The community is putting its arms around them and they are getting support to improve the community and make it a thriving community.”
In addition to the community school, which incorporates general classrooms and Virtual Learning Academy (VLA) programming through the Jefferson County Educational Service Center, USA also operates the Energy Center in partnership with Youngstown State University. The facility is lodged at the former Huntington Bank at 70 E. Main St. and offersprogramming formegatronics, hydraulics, pneumatics, AC/DC electric, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC’s), diesel mechanics and horticulture to train both students and adults.
Officials said the expansion is also part of the Connecting Communities through Workforce Training project to reduce the barrier of transportation and increase accessibility to quality workforce training for residents in Columbiana, Carroll, Jefferson and Mahoning counties. It will have a transformational impact on the region by providing residents with a career pathway and an opportunity to earn a sustainable living wage, plus it also looks to eliminate generational poverty in the area.
Grant criteria included downtown revitalization, workforce development and health and well-being, and Watson said USA has met those points with beautification projects, student education and adult training programs and incorporating aspects of health and well-being.
USA is a dropout recovery-and-retention school focusing on career-tech education for at-risk students who have obtained more than 1,100 certifications since 2021. Additional benefits of the new building will allow students to earn heavy equipment certificates and aid the community through collaborations with YSU and the SOD Center in 3-D printing, 5G and job readiness courses. Further plans include providing potential recovery-to-work efforts to help recovering drug addicts, people with chronic health issues or facing legal challenges and adult education classes would be open to residents within the four-county region to help them find new opportunities in the workforce. Leaders said the expansion will revitalize Main Street in downtown Salineville and increase the industrial training footprint in Salem. Meanwhile, it has also partnered with the Mahoning County Pathways HUB to hire community health workers, or CHW’s, who use evidence-based strategies to obtain health services for students and their families.The Connecting Communities through Workforce Training project isa transformational change that will reduce regional poverty and improve the regional standard of living.
USA is currently in its ninth year and serves students in grades 9-12 through blended learning and hands-on education to prepare them for the workforce. For more information, contact (330) 932-9997 or go online to www.uticashaleschool.com.
