Career skills center is run by local school districts
The Columbian: LONGVIEW — The Kalama School District will use $1.15 million received from the state Legislature to design a new facility where students can have outdoor lessons on subjects like forestry and ecology.
The funds come from this year’s supplemental capital budget through a collaboration with Cascadia Technical Academy, and the facility will double as a satellite location for Cascadia Tech’s natural resources program.
Cascadia Tech is a career and technical education skills center located in Vancouver and run by 10 local school districts. It partners with those districts to offer career programs, like two in the Woodland School District that prepare students to be electricians and paraeducators.
Currently, Cascadia Tech serves only schools as far north as Woodland, but the satellite program at Kalama would be open to juniors and seniors from Castle Rock, Kalama, Kelso, La Center, Longview, Ridgefield and Woodland.
Two sessions of Cascadia Tech’s natural resources program, serving a total of 50 students, would use the space in the morning, while Kalama students of all grade levels would use it in the afternoon, Huston said. It could also be used as a community event space.
Offerings from both schools are planned to center around forestry and related careers, which are identified as an area of high need in local industry.