DeAtley Center growing after $2.3M grant

The A. Neil DeAtley Career Technical Education Center will get an expansion to increase services to students after receiving a $2.3 million grant.

The DeAtley Center, which was constructed as part of the new high school that was completed in 2020, offers career technical education for a variety of fields. In the five years the center has been in use the trades and industry programming has “increased significantly,” said Director of Student Services Kim Eimers.

“We ran out of space,” Eimers said.

The DeAtley Center needs a common open space for students to be able to work on larger projects such as building a jet boat in welding or a tiny home for construction. Some of those projects include a full jet boat at 25 feet or a 600-square-foot tiny home. The current labs don’t have the space to house those large projects as well as the other student projects. Eimers applied for funding more than a year ago, and the school received a $2.3 million grant from Idaho Career Ready Students.

The addition to the DeAtley Center will have lab spaces for those projects as well as a dedicated space for information technology courses, which has also been seeing an increase in enrollment. The lab will also have a locker area for students to put equipment and tools, like welding helmets and coveralls.

The proposed fabrication lab will allow students to assemble those projects. Students can build the smaller components in the regular classroom labs and then construct it in the large lab area.

Although all programs that go through the center are growing, Eimers attributed the growth to the welding program at the school.

“When we added welding it exploded exponentially,” she said. “The lab we had is not even close to sufficient for what we need.”

The larger space will give students the foundational skills to put together projects on a bigger scale as well as real-world and hands-on experience that come from putting those projects together.

Eimers is also hoping the space allows for cross-curricular learning. For example, if a tiny home is being built, welding students can contribute to the construction, information technology students can add smart home technology, engineering students can do the drafting and machining students can make the smaller parts of the home.

“The big grand scheme of things is we could have this big cross project curriculum where regardless of what program students are in, all would have a part in it,” Eimers said.

The DeAtley Center and the high school were built to allow for growth and expansion.

“They intentionally built the facility to be able to add on in a more cost-efficient manner,” Eimers said.

The construction for the DeAtley Center addition will go out to bid in the next couple months. Eimers said the groundbreaking will be in the spring and it will open to students in January.

The construction shouldn’t disrupt learning as the exterior will be completed in the summer and the interior work will begin by fall. In fact, the ongoing construction could be a learning opportunity for students to see and perhaps even take part in the building process, “where they can really see how their skills work in the real world on site,” Eimers said.

Brewster may be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.