“It’s not just about expanding our campus, it’s about expanding opportunities for our students,” said Abbie Cook, principal of the Bioscience Center.
The growing healthcare worker employer needs of southwest Ohio has private healthcare providers calling for a feeder system of career training and Butler Tech’s expanding programs, which include biomedical science, dental science, exercise science and healthcare science are at the forefront of that effort, said Butler Tech officials.
Students “can stair-step their way from a certification they earn in high school and then hop into the adult ed LPN (License Practical Nurse) and then do the bridge to their RN (Registered Nurse), which is new on our adult ed, which is very exciting,” said Cook.
The $12.7 million expansion project, which began in fall 2024, was designed to nearly double the square footage of the health care career training school for high school and adult students to 32,000 square feet.
It’s the biggest expansion in the history of the popular program, which first opened its campus in 2015.
And the near doubling of the Bioscience Center, which sits prominently on a hill overlooking the Interstate 75 and Cincinnati-Dayton Road interchange in West Chester Twp., will soon see a similar jump in the number adult nursing students who will begin classes at the campus, said Butler Tech officials.
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.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
A.J. Huff, spokeswoman for Butler Tech, described the bigger campus as a “meaningful investment in the future of our students and our region.”
“By growing the Bioscience Center, Butler Tech can serve more learners, expand access to high-demand healthcare programs, and create additional pathways for both high school and adult education students. At the same time, it strengthens the pipeline of skilled professionals our local healthcare systems and communities rely on every day,” said Huff.
Among the area high school students now learning in the new wing is Jasmine Goodwine, a senior from Lakota West High School who plans to go into the genetics research field, said she appreciates the less-congested classrooms and labs.
“I now have my phlebotomy and stats classes in the new wing and I really like it. There are more and separate parts of the building now. The school can now accommodate more people,” said Goodwine.
Isaiah Butler, from Fairfield High School, is a junior studying exercise science praised the new classrooms and learning labs.
“We’ve been waiting all school year for it. There are more classrooms where (private industry) teachers can come in and teach us new things … giving us more opportunities to learn from people who are actually in the medical field,” said Butler.
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