Students from the Bloomington Career Academy [BCA] were able to try their hands at construction during a Tuesday tour of the building they will call home next school year.
The BCA purchased the building at 2309 E. Oakland Ave. from State Farm in February. The building — now named after Willie G. and Gloria Brown — will be ready to house the BCA by August, said director Bryce Hansen.
Students from the BCA’s construction trades class were given a tour of the building during renovations Tuesday morning, ending with an opportunity to hang drywall themselves. The course is offered with dual credit from Heartland Community College.
The BCA enrolls students from 17 different schools across the region.
“It's just a great opportunity for them to be able to apply the skills that they learned. They just completed a drywall unit. So this kind of synced up perfectly,” said Hansen.
Jonathan Miller, a student from Bloomington High School, learned construction may be the career for him after high school.
“Moving around is like a big thing for me, because some classes, I can't focus unless I'm up and moving,” said Miller.
Hansen said the experience also is helpful for students and their families if they decide a certain career path is not for them.
“At 16, 17 years old, you’ve got to figure out that's not for me. You're not going to go waste two, three years in college, how many tens of thousands of dollars pursuing something that you're not ultimately going to find fulfilling," Hansen said.
A goal for District 87 when the building was acquired was to address capacity concerns for the BAC, as well as the Sarah E. Raymond School of Early Education. Hansen said the BCA has been able to expand some programs and add extra teachers to reduce the program’s wait list.
