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Willamette High School opens its new CTE building

A small crowd gathers in front of a two-story school building.
Karen Richards
/
KLCC
The two-story, 15,000 square foot center is behind Willamette High School.

Willamette High School in northwest Eugene held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new Career and Technical Education Center Thursday.

Administrators thanked Bethel School District voters for supporting the 2020 school bond that paid for the facility, as well as the new Cascade Middle School and other projects. Superintendent Kraig Sproles said it will offer several academic alternatives to a four-year college degree.

Jessica Arnold teaches business at Willamette. As she was setting up her classroom, she told KLCC none of the programs in the building are new to the school. What’s different is all of them, including robotics, graphic design, computer science and drafting, will form a hub.

“Our students are gonna be working together and doing essentially, like a school-district business," she said. "And so our students are gonna do screen printed t-shirts, posters and big signs, vinyl lettering. The kids will be able to kind of interact in more of a business and production format and be able to get some real world experiences with that.”

Arnold said removing these classrooms from the main building allows the school’s automotive program to expand its class offerings.

A line of people hold a long ribbon, in front of a newly-opened building.
Karen Richards
/
KLCC
Students, staff, administrators and school board members participated in the ribbon cutting, including Willamette Principal Alyssa Dodds (in pink) and Superintendent Kraig Sproles (second from right).

Karen Richards joined KLCC as a volunteer reporter in 2012, and became a freelance reporter at the station in 2015. In addition to news reporting, she’s contributed to several feature series for the station, earning multiple awards for her reporting.