Less than a week ago, the Community Schools of Frankfort presented a plan in which they could possibly occupy the Ivy Tech building in downtown Frankfort as part of a plan that would make that structure a new Career Tech Center.
On Monday evening, both the Frankfort City Council and Board of Works gave their blessings to the plan.
“We’ve been working on the Career Tech for quite some time,” said Frankfort Mayor Judy Sheets. “I think it’s going to play out in a great way for our community because the attendance in person for Ivy Tech is down. They have a lot of online but not a lot of people who attend here. They have some adult classes which is going to continue.”
Community Schools of Frankfort Superintendent Dr. Matt Rhoda, who presented the plan to the Commissioners last Thursday along with Ivy Tech Chancellor Dr. Aaron Baute and the CTE Director of Wildcat Creek Georgia Everett, said they will decide as a co-op, and the other schools will decide, if this will move forward and everybody will contribute.
Rhoda said the operational cost of the building plus a secretary would be around $150,000 a year. He said Ivy Tech will take care of the cost until December 2026 when Frankfort will take over the cost. Rhoda added they will go into the building next year when they have all of their CTE classes.
Sheets, along with Baute and Rhoda, all said Ivy Tech was in trouble because of the declining student enrollment. However, all three are very hopeful that this will be the solution to the bigger problem.
Ivy Tech took over control of the building at the corner of Clinton and Jackson in 2012.
Sheets was asked why the three county schools (Clinton Central, Clinton Prairie and Rossville) didn’t put much into the Tech Center.
“I think because of the length of time that it has taken to put this together, I think they kind of lost interest,” said Sheets. “We started out in the Marsh building, then we looked at another building, then they were going to tear down the bus garage and build it out there. We were looking at a $20 million facility.”
Sheets added the funding was the major problem for the project.