Career center land search under way

The Lafourche Parish School Board is advertising to buy 10 to 15 acres of land for a future parish career center.

School Board Business Manager Don Gaudet said this move marks the start of the third phase of construction for the parish school district.

“[The career center] is one of the biggest projects in this phase,” Gaudet said. “We want to build a school similar to the vocational technical school in Terrebonne Parish, but ours will be a career center.”

The district doesn’t have the funds to accomplish the entire project at this point, especially if it has to pay full price for the land, according to Gaudet. It is starting with a seed budget of $10 million – generated from the sale of $48 million bond issue approved in 2003.

“Now we have monies to start doing some things. One of the things we are doing is hiring an architect to start designing the building. We are also looking for land that we can actually put the facility on,” Gaudet said.

The board hopes to find land in central Lafourche, near Mathews along Louisiana Highways 1 or 308 – the halfway point between north and south Lafourche.

“We want to have the center in a position where all the students in the parish can attend having equal travel times for both ends of the parish,” Gaudet explained.

The Lafourche career center will serve 10th through 12th graders, providing two to three hours of long-term skills, including welding, automotive technology, carpentry/construction, child care, machinery, marine operations, cosmetology and certified nursing assistant training.

“We want to give students extra skills that will give them some form of a trade or license when they graduate to show that they are marketable,” he said.

The career center will also house students prepping for the Graduate Equivalency Diploma.

“The school will have two types of students: those that will attend for traditional training in English, mathematics, science and social studies and those that will attend for career and vocational training,” he explained.

The parish currently has access to all of the vocational and technical courses to be offered, excluding machinery and cosmetology. However, the classes have never been offered in a consolidated, easily accessible area.

The marine operation program is solely available at South Lafourche High School. The welding program is offered at South Lafourche and Central Lafourche High’s campus.

And Thibodaux High students have to visit the Louisiana Technical College to access the carpentry/construction course.

All three high schools – South Lafourche, Central Lafourche and Thibodaux – have students enrolled in the technical college’s nursing assistant program.

“Our goal is to offer all the vocational and technical skills in one setting,” said Secondary and Vocational Education Supervisor Blaine Degruise.

With 10 to 15 acres of land, the board believes the career center could easily expand to meet the parish’s demand.

“If we have more students or programs than we anticipated, we won’t have to tear down anything to make room. We can just keep building outward,” Gaudet said.

The school system hopes to partner with local industry – a potential beneficiary of a skilled workforce – to help with the program.

“The industries will contribute as much as the school district to have this career center constructed in the parish. Together, we will establish the curriculum and recruit students,” Gaudet noted.

If, for example, a shipyard uses a certain piece of welding equipment, Gaudet said the school will install that equipment as well to ensure students have ample training prior to graduation.

The school system is accepting land proposals through Dec. 31.