Work has recently begun on another building near Salem High School, to house the school’s construction trade program. The tin gym was featured in the Sept. 12 edition of The Salem News. The existing construction trades program, led by teacher A.J. Tinker, helps students build vocational skills by giving them hands-on experience while working on construction projects. The new building will provide a dedicated space for the program and is planned to have features that will enhance student’s vocational learning experiences.
Salem R-80 Superintendent Dr. Lynne Reed said that the roots of the building project predate her time at the school—and that crews recently began laying groundwork for the shell of the building.
“It was approved in 2019,” said Reed. “There were donations as far back as 2017. But that was just for construction training for the program. As far as the initiative to get the building, that was also in place before I got here, and [the way] it was set up, the city and the school district were partners in creating this workforce training facility.”
The project started with a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant, which Reed said the city wrote. The grant required 50% matching funds. The other half of the funding came in the form of the Youth Opportunity Program (YOP), through the state’s Department of Economic Development, which allows private donations from the community to be made toward approved projects in exchange for a credit on donor’s state income tax. When Reed joined the district in July 2020, she said the grant funding was in place, but not the matching funds.
“We were at the point where we're almost at the deadline, and we didn't have the [YOP] money, so we were going to lose the grant money. And at that point, Sherman Odom and Tod Kinerk got heavily involved, and they went out and solicited the funding from community members, and they got it done. I mean, I can't really take much credit for that, because those two were instrumental. And then Wes Hester, his wife, Lisa (Durbin), is from Salem. He was very supportive of the program before there was ever a building project. I don't want to just play up individuals, but Tod and Sherman made it happen,” said Reed.
With the roughly $430,000 in matching YOP funds secured, the district could begin work on the project. The first and current phase of the project is for the construction of the shell of the building. The interior will be completed later, said Reed. Managing the project is architect John Odom, and the general contractor is BuildTec Construction out of St. James. Ground broke on the project in recent weeks.
When the shell of the building is complete, Reed said that students with the construction trades program will be finishing out some of the interior under Tinker’s direction. The building might have some other uses beyond the construction trades program, but Reed said some of the details are still up in the air as the district figures out logistics.
“You know, that's been sort of a fluid situation. The grant was written with certain things in mind, but a lot of those people aren't even here anymore. So definitely construction trades and some sort of technology. […] I don't know exactly what that piece will look like,” she said. “We need to work out to see which technology classes […] will be out there. And then also, the grant was written with some sort of community access, you know, so doing things that involve community members as well. So that again, I don't know what that looks like.”
Reed said the district will need to establish what the community needs from the space.
“That piece of it is still to be determined, as far as how we meet needs, and we need to see what those needs are before we just decide, ‘Oh, this is what that's going to look like’. Construction trades is the bulk of it; they’ll have a big shop out there,” said Reed.
On Thursday, Sept. 14, crews with BuildTec were enjoying the nice weather as they worked to get the concrete foundation of the building laid. According to Reed, the project is on a short timeline, with a completion deadline of Dec. 31, in order to be able to access the grant money for the project.
“They feel confident that it will be done in plenty of time. And, they've had great weather, and they've been here every day. They’ve really made great progress pretty quickly,” said Reed. “And again, that’s just the shell. We won’t have the interior finished.”
How will the project proceed after the shell is done? According to Reed, there is still funding work to do.
“I mean, we've got it budgeted, but obviously we'd like to get some other grants or things like that, and we'll have to take our time on that, just because we've done so many building projects. This one really wasn't budgeted for because we didn't think we were going to be able to come up with that YOP money, and Sherman and Tod pulled the rabbit out of the hat and got it done,” she said.
For now, the community which helped fund the project will no doubt eagerly watch as the building’s shell goes up—another student-oriented addition to the growing SHS campus.
