District officials discussed further details about plans for the center with Cedar Park City Council during its July 11 meeting, where the initial rezoning request to get the process moving forward was considered on first reading.
Zooming in
According to LISD’s design, the proposed 9.09-acre property located at 1775 W. New Hope Drive, Cedar Park, would house two 30,000-square-foot buildings, the district’s project engineer said during the meeting. One building will be used for the vocational education center, and the other as a storage distribution center for LISD scientific textbooks and materials.
LISD Construction Project Manager Brian St Clair said the new center will have several teaching opportunities for the students that mimic adulthood or the "real world," such as a mock up apartment, a fitness center, vocational training labs to teach them skills for the workplace and a commercial kitchen where they can learn to work in an eatery. The students will also be able to help sort the items in the scientific materials storage facility.
The building has a capacity to hold 145 students, St Clair said, and each student will have a teacher or coach catering to their specific, individualized needs.
Further, both of the buildings will feature meeting rooms, which will be available for any district employee to use, St Clair said. There will also be a surface parking lot up front with 165 spaces to accommodate the on-site staff and district employees.
“This is great. I think this is great for our community, great for the area,” council member Kevin Harris said.
How we got here
LISD offers a Skills for Enhancing Lifelong Fulfillment 18+ program to provide a continuation of transitional services beyond high school, based on the abilities and needs of each student. At present, the SELF Hub operates out of six portable buildings behind Cedar Park High School and two buildings at Twin Lakes Family YMCA, St Clair said.
Once LISD’s new vocational education center opens, St Clair said the district can foresee it attracting a lot of families with special needs students who could graduate into this program. He said the program will only be available for in-district students, however.
St Clair said the center is necessary to plan for the district’s future growth and the demand for this program that will come with it. He said there are about a dozen schools around the state similar to LISD’s vocational educational center, with the nearest one being Rosedale School in Austin.
In the future, St Clair said the district is looking to add about 5,000 additional square feet to both buildings, expanding the capacity even further to accommodate for the anticipated growth.
Next steps
Cedar Park City Council will consider LISD’s rezoning request for approval during its July 25 meeting.
“I think it’s really wonderful, [though] we’re not voting on it tonight,” Mayor Jim Penniman-Morin said. “I do really commend the work of the district trying to make sure all of our students are well-supported.”
An official construction timeline was not available at the time of publication.
