Seeing the groundbreaking Tuesday for an $8 million Chattanooga Construction Career Center for training building trades workers on the campus of the former Mary Garber elementary school in East Chattanooga was wonderful. We believe it is perhaps the most important groundbreaking our city and county has seen since those of the Volkswagen auto assembly plant and the Tennessee Aquarium.
Chattanooga and Hamilton County – and our teens and young adults – have needed this kind of concentrated career education locally since the 1991 closure of Kirkman Technical High School. Now our 11th and 12th graders who are not headed to college can learn sought-after building trades such as masonry, carpentry, welding and HVAC. And with the career center’s connection to the Associated General Contractors of East Tennessee and the Tennessee College of Applied Technology, the campus can also provide adult education for those beyond high school age.
The former elementary school will be refurbished and reequipped, and an outside area on the campus will be dedicated for hands-on construction learning. Further, as the school lies in the heart of Chattanooga near the former Harriett Tubman Homes housing site, it is on a regular public bus line – always a plus for students and parents.
The new school will make a natural extension of the vocational training at Sequoyah High School in Soddy-Daisy (which includes cosmetology, digital arts, machining and automotive skills) and of the Future Ready Institutes at various county schools that already teach robotics and medical/insurance skills among other disciplines.
This editorial page, along with the Free Press Editorial Page to our right, has been calling for just this kind of vocational school action since at least 2014. This training has been sorely needed here -not just for contractors looking for local workers but also for our children who need skills to earn a livable wage whether they eventually attend college or not.