On Jan. 6, CTE students will move into the newly constructed Rockbridge innovations center, which was previously known as the “T-Hallway”. This newly constructed center will improve CTE student’s learning experiences and prepare them better for their careers after highschool.
The original T-Hallway was built as a trade school in 1975 for the four local highschools in the areas at the time. In 1992, the rest of Rockbridge County High School was built as we know it today. The old T-Hallway had light brown walls and ceilings and tan linoleum floors; it looked very mismatched and dated compared to the rest of the high school’s interior.
Mr. Alton Jarvis has been teaching CTE classes at Rockbridge for 25 years. He currently teaches Electronics I, II, and III. While he is one of the CTE teachers who are able to get a room dedicated to his class, many classes such as auto body had to do their classes outside or share other teacher’s classes, he still faced some difficulties teaching his class.
“ Some of [my] tools and equipment were stored away and I didn’t have access to them. We had to adapt and try to teach certain things as best we could. But there’s some things we just weren’t able to do,” said Jarvis. “I was able to teach as much as 80% of what I did, maybe 85% what I would normally do [due to the equipment being in storage]”
The decreased classroom size made Jarvis unable to teach some concepts that he would normally be able to teach his students, as they simply didn’t have the equipment and means to do so.
Despite these difficulties, Jarvis believes they will be worth it and overall improve students’ excitement about heading to CTE classes.
“For years in the old building, I used to watch students come through the T-Hallway doors and have a negative reaction to stepping into that old building. And now I’ve seen the opposite of that already, where students walk through those double doors now and they’re in awe of it,” Jarvis said. “It’s really refreshing and nice to have that change in perspective with not just my students that are in my class, but students in general coming through th
ose doors.”
Senior Gabriela Dickovick, a Nursing Aide II student, who hopes to become a nurse aide after high school and believes these renovations will help her prepare for her future career as. Her and other Nurse Aide students have had the opportunity to tour their new classroom.
“It’s a really pretty classroom… [it has] a hospital desk station and resident rooms that look pretty realistic to what you would have in a hospital,” Dickovick said.
The new space will be a very different change compared to the nurse aide classes’ current space, which they were temporarily moved to last year while the renovations were in progress.
Nurse aide teacher Ms. Heather Higgins also believes the renovations will improve her teaching experience.
“The new classroom has more classroom [space] and students have more time to [learn] the skills because there’s more [hospital] beds [to practice on],” Higgins said. “[The students are] very excited.”
These beds will allow students to have more time to become more accustomed with skills they’ll need in the medical field. All of the students’ excitement is proof that the school’s, contractors’, and construction workers’ efforts are worth it.
CTE Director and the Rockbridge Innovation Center Building committee, Mr. Paige Owens, was a key figure in the renovations process who coordinated with CTE teachers about their needs from the renovations and with contractors, alongside Mr. Kurt Bennet.
“The previous building (Floyd S. Kay Technical Center) was built in 1975 and was way past due for an upgrade. Between the age of the building and how much career and technical education has changed since the 1970’s, our school division and our county made it a priority to do this renovation,” Owens said.
The planners of the project wanted to update the building to accommodate for the recent expansion of CTE classes that can better prepare students’ for technical jobs and their life after high school.
The renovations have been in the works for roughly ten years and have been being built since July 2023. After the past decade of work, the renovations are likely to finally conclude Dec. 24.
Many students have been wondering if these renovations will only be limited to a new CTE wing, or if the school district is willing to invest in renovating the rest of the school building. There are conversations of starting renovations plans for the rest of the school within the next five-ten years, but they will likely occur after all current students are graduated.
