School board moves toward creation of a local career academy with NIACC

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City School District Board of Directors took initial steps at Monday’s board meeting toward building a local career academy.

The board unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding with North Iowa Area Community College (NIACC) regarding a regional career academy.

“We’ve been excited about this,” said Charles City Superintendent Mike Fisher. “Our community needs it for our career readiness.”

Fisher said that there have been several months of discussions with NIACC leadership and area superintendents regarding the academy, which will be located within the Charles City Community Schools boundaries. NIACC can now begin the process of applying for grants and planning programming.

Fisher said the next step will be to write a grant for $1 million from the state, which will go toward building the career center here.

“This doesn’t really bind us to any specific thing right now. It just shows that we as a district and a community are very committed to this,” Fisher said. “It allows us to get things in order and get the ball moving forward.”

NIACC President Steven Schulz talked to the board and said that seven area school districts are interested in participating, and said that NIACC is looking for a soft commitment so that the grant can be applied for.

The other local schools that are interested were not named at the meeting, as their boards had not yet voted on the memorandum. Approval is expected within the next week.

“This is really the next step in going out and getting the community support that we need to do this well and build a structure that can be sustainable over time,” Schulz said.

By signing this memo, each institution affirms its commitment to support the construction of the facility and pledge their support of it for a 10-year period.

The regional education center will consist of four academies, also referred to as programs. The initial academies will be advanced manufacturing, construction trades, health care, and information technology.

Concurrent enrollment coursework will be offered for each of the four academies. Secondary coursework, additional certifications, work-based learning opportunities, and K-12 coursework will also be offered.

The memo serves to formalize the initial commitment between NIACC and Charles City to construct and maintain a center in Charles City.

NIACC’s responsibilities would be to prepare an initial budget outlining the funding of construction and purchasing of equipment for the academy, dedicate funding and resources to equipment and sustainability and serve as a fiscal agent, plan for the educational programs that will be offered, provide academic advising and counseling to students and provide supervisory responsibilities at the Regional Education Center.

The Charles City School District and potentially the seven other area districts — if they also pass the memo — will support the construction of the center locally, commit to using partnership funds to purchase equipment to be used at the center, recruit students and assist them in registering for programs and commit PPEL and sales tax funding to support the sustainability of the facility and enhance programs.

Each school district will “own” a certain number of seats for each program, based on a percentage of the overall enrollment of each school district.

A similar academy is being created with NIACC in the Forest City School District and includes Garner-Hayfield-Ventura, Lake Mills, North Iowa and West Hancock school districts.

In March, voters in the 11-county NIACC coverage area overwhelmingly approved a $15 million NIACC bond referendum in a special election.

In addition to infrastructure improvements on the college’s Mason City campus and expanding training in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers and health care careers, the bond referendum included support for at least three regional career centers including the one being built in Forest City.

In July, the Iowa Department of Education announced that the Forest City career center had won a $1 million competitive grant through the Career Academy Incentive Fund to prepare more high school students for success in college, postsecondary training and the workforce.

The Forest City career center also received a $2.25 million private donation from the Hanson Family Foundation, a foundation started by the family that founded Winnebago Industries.

Ground was broken on the Forest City center in November, and it is planned to be ready by the fall 2021 semester.