New skills center 70 percent complete

MOSES LAKE - All exterior walls and interior framing are up at the Columbia Basin Skills Center, and windows will be in and electricity on by mid-November. Moses Lake School Board members toured the site recently.

The 43,572-square-foot skills center, located on Yonezawa Avenue, will offer classes in a number of vocational and professional subjects for students in 11 schools in Grant and Adams counties. Participating schools are Almira/Coulee-Hartline, Ephrata, Lake Roosevelt, Lind, Moses Lake, Othello, Quincy, Royal City, Soap Lake and Warden.

Cost of the project is about $19.4 million. Construction is about 75 percent completed, project consultant John Aultman said. The first classes are scheduled for summer school, June 2014.

Administrators anticipate about 400 students for fall 2014, Aultman said. Students will have a choice of morning, afternoon or evening sessions, each lasting three hours, he said.

Students can study computer science (including advanced placement classes), culinary arts, building and craft trades, medical careers, engineering and manufacturing. Some classes will allow students to qualify for job certification, while some will fill qualifications for post-secondary training or college. Aultman cited the certified nurse assistant program as an example. All students who take the CNA class will be expected to take the certification tests, which will qualify them for the workplace. And CNA certification is a prerequisite for nursing programs, he said.

Administrators will be working with Big Bend Community College and other colleges to translate classes at the skills center into college credits, Aultman said.

In addition, the skills center is part of the Running Start program, where students can take college classes for both high school and college credit.

The design tries to take advantage of as much technology as possible, Aultman said, including a three-dimensional printer for pre-engineering, manufacturing and business startup classes. The skills center consortium recently received a $75,000 grant, he said, for equipment to build composite aerospace materials.

Construction should be completed in late March or early April, Aultman said, with equipment testing expected to take about six weeks. A grand opening is scheduled about July 1.