An expansion may be in the works by next year for A.W. Beattie Career Center in McCandless.
Student enrollment at Beattie is growing, according to director Eric Heasley
“The possibility of an addition to the existing career center building is due to continued enrollment growth and additional potential program considerations,” he said.
Enrollment has continually increased for several years, from about 700 students in the 2018-19 school year to nearly 1,000 students in 2023-24, according to Heasley.
“We’re already pretty tight in some areas,” Heasley said. “We continue to grow, year after year after year.”
The school, located on 9600 Babcock Blvd., serves students in North Allegheny, Avonworth, Deer Lakes, Fox Chapel Area, Hampton Township, Northgate, North Hills, Pine-Richland and Shaler Area school districts.
North Allegheny also has continued to experience solid growth in enrollment at A.W. Beattie and for 2023-24 has the second-largest enrollment among the center’s districts, Heasley said.
Planning for a potential expansion is still in its early phases, and most of the discussions have been primarily during A.W. Beattie Career Center’s Joint Operation Committee meetings so far, Heasley said. The JOC oversees decisions at Beattie and includes school board representatives from each of the nine sending districts.
Hampton Township School Board held its Feb. 5 school board meeting at the career center, where Heasley presented two preliminary design options.
A first option is for two stories, four lab additions, five lab instructional spaces, five lab alterations and additional building renovations at a cost of $17.5 million.
The second option presented was a one-story expansion with two lab additions and five lab alterations, at a cost of $9.4 million.
“There is a building escalation cost based on when this potential addition could take place,” Heasley said. He cited the figures as more than $18 million for the first option and $9.634 million for the second.
The building is currently one story, built in the 1960s. Its last renovation was in 2008, Heasley said.
“The two-story (option) is preferred because it gives the most opportunity for our students, for your students moving forward,” he said.
By implementing the one-floor option with the possibility of constructing a second floor onto it in the future, the center would have to prep it for a stairwell, elevator and different roof, which would increase the cost, anyway.
Each district’s financial contribution would be different, based on its student enrollment as a whole for sophomores to seniors, and total assessed value of each school district, per the discussion. It also would be based on Allegheny County’s total assessed value of the school district.
The designs will help bring programs into one shared space, including health and nursing sciences to one floor and the advertising design program to one space. That would allow for more teachers and more programs, and more shared instructional equipment in proximity.
Heasley said that would avoid having to put some students on a waiting list.
If all goes through, Heasley said they’d like to break ground next year.
Libby Blackburn, North Allegheny School Board representative to A.W. Beattie Career Center, mentioned at a January board meeting about the school needing to expand.
North Allegheny has 171 students who attend Beattie this year, according to Blackburn, with the breakdown of 62 in 10th grade, 60 in 11th grade and 49 in 12th grade.
Beattie Career Center offers 19 programs to provide students an educational experience to be college and career ready after high school graduation.
Natalie Beneviat is a Trib Total Media contributing writer.