Space in the rear of this former Olan Mills building will be the site of a STEM school at the Chattanooga State campus. The Wacker Institute is already operating in the front of the building.
STEM schoolNASHVILLE — Now that Tennessee has given Hamilton County Schools a $1 million grant to help start a local school focused on science, technology, engineering and math, the “hard work begins,” Superintendent Rick Smith said.
“We’re excited. We worked really, really hard the last, gosh, eight months to prepare for today,” said Smith, who came to Nashville on Monday to watch Gov. Bill Haslam announce a total of $4.85 million in grants to fund three STEM schools and three STEM “hubs” in Hamilton, Cookeville and the Tri-Cities area.
“Of course,” Smith added, “right now the hard work begins. You know, we’ve got a lot of preparation … but now we’ve got to get busy actually building a school.”
The school is slated to open for 75 ninth-grade students this fall and will be in the former Olan Mills building that sits next to the main campus of Chattanooga State Community College. The building was purchased by Chattanooga State in 2010.
Smith said he was eager to get back to Chattanooga and begin work on readying a 17,000-square-foot school that must open in August. About $750,000 from local business and industry will help finance the build-out of vacant space that’s next to the Wacker Institute at the college.