Photo: MCC President Chad Bledsoe chats with Montgomery County Schools board member Sandra Miller on Monday night, while MCS Superintendent Dale Ellis looks on.
By Kyle Poplin • “It’s all about economic development.”
That’s what Dale Ellis, superintendent of Montgomery County Schools, said Monday about the new consolidated high school being built near Montgomery Community College. Ellis was speaking at “The Future of Education in Montgomery County” forum in Levin Auditorium organized by the Lions Club of Mt. Gilead.
Ellis said the new high school, offering classes in conjunction with the nearby community college – with a particular focus on career technical education and students graduating high school with college credits – will produce more students ready to enter the workforce. That’s designed to offer a more attractive business climate for firms looking to relocate to or expand in Montgomery County.
“That’s what all this is for,” Ellis said. “We need more businesses in Montgomery County, more economic development. Our only growth cannot be retirees on the lake. That is not sustainable over time.”
The new high school, which will be classified by the state as either a small AAA school or large AA school, is funded primarily by a $70 million loan agreement initiated in 2016 between the county and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That move came without a public vote. Ellis defended that move Monday. “Why didn’t we vote? There was no time,” he said, since the USDA loan was only available for a short time.
Chad Bledsoe, president of Montgomery Community College, said the under-construction complex will be good for both local students and MCC. “To grow, we need to find students,” he said. “That’s one of the benefits of this collaboration.”
Bledsoe said he’s especially excited about the the Career and Technical Education Center and program expansion at MCC that includes associate degree offerings in such specialities such as a nursing, engineering and fine arts music.