Westmoreland County high school students interested in pursuing a health care or trade school education upon graduation will have another option available to them this summer.
Fayette County-based Laurel Technical Institute will launch its first semester of classes at its new Penn Township location in May, with the fall semester picking up after Labor Day. Founded in Uniontown in 1985, the school moved into the first floor offices of the Penn-Trafford School District’s administration building in February.
Penn-Trafford purchased the two-story 30,000-square-foot building — located in Penn Township’s Bushy Run Corporate Park — for $1.7 million in October 2023, planning to lease the first floor. The district settled on leasing the space to Laurel Technical Institute this past fall for about $260,000 a year, said Superintendent Matthew Harris.
“First of all, I’m very excited that we’ll have an extra education opportunity close to our home. I think it will be great for our students who, after high school, want to do something different,” Harris said. “It’s also bringing in revenue to the school district.”
School anticipates growth in Penn Township
In addition to its Uniontown and Penn Township schools, Laurel Technical Institute has locations in Hermitage, Mercer County; Morgantown, W.Va.; and Fort Mill, S.C. Formerly known as Laurel Business Institute, the school also offers six online programs available to students across the country.
Chief Operating Officer Douglas Decker has watched the school grow across its four decades in business. His late father founded Laurel Technical Institute, and his mother now leads the school as president and chief executive officer.
“I jokingly say I’ve been working here for 40 years as well, because when you’re in a family operation, you’re always working in it,” he said. “It was a labor of love for our family.”
Decker is confident Laurel Technical Institute will thrive in Penn Township, positioned about a mile from Route 22 and less than 10 miles from high schools including Penn-Trafford, Franklin Regional and Greensburg Salem.
“You look at this (Route) 22 corridor between Greensburg and Monroeville and further all the way down to Pittsburgh,” Decker said, “and you just see tremendous growth here.
“We thought we had the ability with the location in Fayette County to stand up a satellite location here pretty quickly.”
The Penn Township school will start out offering respiratory therapy, electrical technician and computer network security technician programs, Decker said, but this could expand in future years. Laurel Technical Institute offers a variety of trade and health care programs, including electrical technology, welding, practical nursing and cardiovascular technology.
Across its brick-and-mortar buildings and online programs, the school enrolled about 750 to 800 students this year, Decker said.
“We’re small. That small class size, sort of the boutique setting, is really our niche,” he said. “We really find students come to us because our programs are accelerated.
“From the moment you start, you’re working toward your graduation date. You don’t have prerequisites to navigate through or anything like that.”
Laurel aims to fill skilled trades gap
The school will help fill a vocational school gap in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Decker said.
Pittsburgh-based Triangle Tech closed in June after 80 years in operation, shutting down all six of its campuses, including those in Pittsburgh and Greensburg. Pittsburgh Technical College, located in Allegheny County’s North Fayette, closed in August, citing declining enrollment, market pressures and inflation.
There were about 374,000 construction job openings across the country in December 2023, according to a 2024 report by McKinsey & Co. The manufacturing industry — including welders, cutters, solderers and braziers — had about 584,000 job openings in January 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But, as vocational school enrollment across the country ticks upward, the skilled trades may see a boost in workers.
After dipping 13% from 2019 to 2021, enrollment in two-year vocation-focused schools increased by 35% from 2021 to 2024, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Enrollment increased from more than 784,600 students in fall 2019 to nearly 923,700 in fall 2024 — a 17% jump.
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With Laurel Technical Institute’s new location, Decker aims to contribute to the momentum.
“I think our society needs all of us to put our hands in the pile to support that gap, because it’s a potential catastrophe,” he said. “I think everybody likes the electricity that comes to their homes, the appliances that give them all the creature comforts.
“They like having heating, air conditioning, plumbing, all these amenities. And if we don’t rebuild our skilled trade population, who’s going to be available to do these things?”