The $12.7 million expansion project, which began in fall 2024, is designed to raise the square footage of the health care career training school for high school and adult students by 2,000 square feet when the school’s new classrooms and learning labs are unveiled in January.
It’s the biggest expansion in the history of the popular program, which first opened its campus in 2015.
“The project is approximately 80% complete,” said David Plotts, said executive director of business operations for Butler Tech.
“From the outside, the building is nearly enclosed and close to its final appearance. Inside, mechanical work is nearing completion, most drywall is installed, the ceiling grid is in place, and crews are preparing to begin painting,” said Plotts.
“We are scheduled to move in at the end of December, with students starting in January,” Plotts said though he added the final first day of classes in the new building may be pushed back from its original early January opening to later that month.
Butler Tech is one of the largest and fastest growing county-wide, public career school systems in Ohio, serving 11 school districts in Butler County and northern Hamilton County with an average daily enrollment of more than 23,000 high school and adult learners at half dozen campuses in the county.
The new, three-story Bioscience wing will impact hundreds of area high school students who travel from throughout the county to learn at the state-of-the-art school, which has been visited and lauded by federal and state education officials since it opened in 2015.
Among the current high school students at the Bioscience Center, excitement is high said high school junior Elliana Torres, who is studying healthcare science.
“The expansion means higher-level equipment, more capstones, more certifications, and more college and hospital partners coming into the building. It opens the door to so many new opportunities,” said Torres.
The extra learning space is needed, she said.
“Some days it gets pretty chaotic because there are so many of us, but with more classrooms, labs, and places to work, the whole dynamic is going to change. It’ll feel more organized and focused.”
“And I’m excited that the 10th graders will finally be here. They’ve temporarily been at (Butler Tech’s) School of the Arts (Fairfield Twp. campus) during the construction, so being in the new building and doing hands-on work with us is going to be a big shift—for them and for us,” said Torres.
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