The 46,000-square-foot facility will be an expansion of the Collinsville Area Vocational Center, or CAVC, which was opened in 1971 and currently provides students from 10 area high schools with dual-credit career training and skill development.
"We've added a new program every year for the past three years. We are out of space. There's not an ounce of room that we have left in that building," Director Joe McGinnis said at the unveiling of the final design Wednesday morning.
The new building will be constructed on property to the northwest of the current CAVC facility located on the Collinsville High School campus, across Caseyville Road. An underground tunnel will connect the two.
Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2025 and be complete by April 2026. Once finished and programs are moved in, the existing CAVC space in the high school will be renovated.
The district is receiving $25 million from the state for the renovations and expansion effort.
Last year, the CAVC had room for 575 students, McGinnis said. Nearly 800 students had applied, meaning the center had to turn away about 200 of them.
"That's been a pretty common theme for us the past three years," he said. "And talking with business and industry, looking into ... the future of our country and our locality here, we don't see things slowing down, really, in terms of student interest in getting into career and tech ed."
The CAVC currently offers 15 programs: agriculture and landscape management, auto body, auto mechanics, building trades, electronics, precision machining, welding, clinical health, criminal justice, cosmetology, cyber security, dental assisting, early childhood education, food service and K-12 teacher preparation.
With the expansion, McGinnis said the CAVC will offer up to 23 programs, initially adding heating, ventilation and air conditioning as well as aviation mechanics and avionics. Veterinary technician and emergency medical technician training are also on the list of potential future programs.
"This can be a workforce pipeline for the metro-east and draw business growth," Collinsville District 10 Superintendent Brad Skertich said.
In addition to meeting workforce demands, the CAVC gives students a career path that will benefit them and their families, he said.
STATE FUNDING
District 10 isn't alone in its push to expand square footage and course offerings for career and technical education, often abbreviated in the education space as CTE.
In 2022, Belleville District 201 opened the doors to its Center for Vocational Excellence, or CAVE, to provide Belleville West and East students with dual-credit vocational training in a variety of fields.
District 201 is currently building a 15,000-square-foot addition to the CAVE to expand its aviation and healthcare programs and establish a new program for automation, manufacturing and robotics.
Educators in both districts are among those who have been advocating for an increase in state funding for career and technical education amid growing student interest and over a decade of mostly flat funding.
This year, they were successful. The state increased its funding of career and technical education programs by nearly $10.3 million for fiscal year 2025 compared to the previous year, bringing the state's support to a total of $58 million.
McGinnis said those state dollars are primarily used for student supplies and upgrading equipment. For example, the CAVC has lathes in its machine shop, one of which was built in 1920 and needs to be replaced.
"That's a $50,000 purchase. If we go into the (computer numerical control) world, we're looking at $200,000-plus purchases," he said. "That CTE funding is really the only way that we can make those purchases. We don't have the internal funding to be able to do that."
The increased funding "allows us to make sure that our students have access to state-of-the-art, safe equipment to learn on," McGinnis added.
He said advocates are now pushing the Illinois State Board of Education and legislators to increase career and technical education funding by $10 million each year for the next five to seven years to drive workforce and economic development.
The $25 million investment from the state in the CAVC's renovation and expansion is a separate state grant District 10 received with the help of state Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville. The legislature appropriated the $25 million in 2023, and the district expects the funds to be released soon.
The expansion is projected to cost about $21.5 million and the renovations of the existing facility are projected to cost about $3 million.
"This is the biggest investment for career and tech education in Illinois, right here," McGinnis said. "We're hoping it supercharges the region and what we're able to do."
©2024 the Belleville News-Democrat (Belleville, Ill.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
