The public is invited to tour a pair of spacious new facilities designed to give students a huge boost in STEM and manufacturing instruction.

Traverse City Area Public Schools on Thursday, April 10 will host ribbon cuttings at its new Innovation and Manufacturing Centers at Central and West high schools. The public can tour each facility following the ribbon cuttings.

Each new facility has about 7,000 square feet of designated space for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) instruction and activities. The buildings include classroom and lab space and are also designed for manufacturing instruction, computer science and more. In addition, they will also house each school's robotics team. 

The IMCs were paid for by the district’s 2018 capital bond, largely wrapping expenditures from that pot of money. Superintendent John VanWagoner is “delighted and excited” with the finished IMCs and is eager for folks to get a closer look.

“When you go to the taxpayers and ask for scarce resources to be able to do something, you want to be able to show it was done right, that the dollars we raised from the community went exactly to what they were looking for,” he tells The Ticker. “Our early feedback from our kids and parents that have had the chance to be in (the IMCs) is that they’ve found them to be just spectacular.”

The facilities cost about $12 million combined to build, Van Wagoner said, higher than the roughly $10 million budgeted due to various cost increases in construction and labor. 

The desire for these facilities arose in part from conversations involving local manufacturers and others who wanted to make sure local kids were being introduced to potential careers in those fields, VanWagoner says.

“There was a consensus and a worry from manufacturers and companies that do things related to STEM about how they’ll be able to sustain their business without people in the workforce that have these skills,” he says. “Those leaders in business and manufacturing said this is one step for kids to get that exposure, get that training and to eventually stay here and work.”

Ultimately, by creating a space for STEM-related work along with manufacturing and more, the space is set to prepare kids for all forms of education and training after high school, even those that perhaps were stigmatized for far too long. It’s part of a broader effort to ensure that kids have “different on and off ramps” for education and training after high school. 

“Our goal is to make sure that we're engaging our kids that want to be engineers and things in that element, but also our kids that maybe want to go into manufacturing – kids that want use their hands to create things or fix things,” VanWagoner says. “I think for a long time the state got away from the importance of that.”

Indeed, VanWagoner says, manufacturing and the trades are becoming more popular in recent years as kids weigh them against the time and increasing cost of a traditional four-year college/university experience.

“You have kids that are seeing and hearing these stories of electricians that after a few years start their own business and are making six figures, or they’re hearing people say we don’t have enough housing in the region, or that when grandma calls for someone to replace the furnace it’s going to be two months out” he says. “Then they realize they can do that in a couple of years and not be $100,000 in debt.”

The robotics teams are also thrilled to use the IMCs. It’s the first time they will have dedicated space to build, test, practice, create business plans and more. Dan Riehl, lead mentor for West’s robotics team, says the new facilities will be a game-changer and are much deserved for the schools' hard-working and talented robotics teams. 

“What if you were a basketball coach, and I tell you to just practice in the hall? How’s that going to go?” he tells The Ticker. “To be good at what you do, if you’re going to be competitive – and this is competitive robotics – you have to have a place to prepare and practice.”

Riehl is also jazzed to have large, dedicated STEM facilities at each high school. For all the talk of trades, the IMCs are also going to be a place where kids are inspired to pursue high-level careers in science, technology and more.

“This gives us a facility that is all about STEM and getting people into STEM,” he says. “Right now, if you go on Indeed, there’s probably 4,000 jobs that have the word engineer in them. These are all high-paying, really good career jobs.”

Ultimately, Riehl feels, it was a great investment by the district and community. 

“We spend a lot of money on athletics. And I love athletics, they’re an important part of the high school experience. But nobody goes pro," he says. "And every one of my kids is going to go pro in engineering, computer science, things like that.”