SALINEVILLE — State officials got a glimpse of the Utica Shale Academy’s planned expansion site during a visit to the campus on June 7.

John Carey, director of the Ohio Department of Development’s Governor’s Office of Appalachia, was joined by office representatives as well as officials from the Ohio Department of Education, Ohio Mid-Eastern Governments Association, the Sustainable Opportunity Development Center of Salem and the Southern Local School District to view the community school and career-tech offerings and USA Superintendent Bill Watson also unveiled designs for a new, $4.8 million building along East Main Street.

The Office of Appalachia awarded an Appalachian Community Grant totaling $2,356,417 to erect a two-story building adjacent to the original community school in the Hutson Building at 70 E. Main St., while the academy leveraged nearly half the costs with two $600,000 equity grants and Emergency Elementary and Secondary School Relief funds.

Watson said the new structure will include nearly 5,100 square feet of space for offices, classrooms, machinery, virtual welding equipment, lockers and restrooms for students working with heavy equipment operation and CNC plasma cutting. Two older buildings were razed to create some space, while a separate 2,800-square-foot outdoor welding lab is also onsite. He noted that the project has been put out to bid and hopes are to begin construction over the next few months.

Carey and other officials applauded the shale academy for its fortitude and said the benefits were far-reaching.

“It will expand the program and there is a real push for workforce across the United States,” said Carey. “If we can have a more skilled workforce, it means more economic development in the region. The mission of the Utica Shale Academy is to help people become successful in a non-traditional way and this will be a win for the workforce, but it will also be a win for those who take advantage of it.”

“I’m blown away,” said Sheila Vitale, director of the Office of School Sponsorship for the ODE. “They’ve done an amazing job for the community and these kids. It gives these students a goal and they have their future ahead of them. It’s turned their lives around.”

“It’s great to see how the school is doing it,” added Warren Glen, who represented the Office of School Sponsorship. “The community is putting its arms around them and they are getting support to improve the community and make it a thriving community.”

In addition to the community school, which incorporates general classrooms and Virtual Learning Academy programming through the Jefferson County Educational Service Center, the shale academy operates the energy center in partnership with Youngstown State University. The facility is lodged at the former Huntington Bank at 70 E. Main St. and offers programming for megatronics, hydraulics, pneumatics, AC/DC electric, programmable logic controllers, diesel mechanics and horticulture to train students and adults.

Officials said the expansion is part of the Connecting Communities through Workforce Training project to reduce the barrier of transportation and increase accessibility to quality workforce training for residents in Columbiana, Carroll, Jefferson and Mahoning counties. It will have a transformational impact on the region by providing residents with a career pathway and an opportunity to earn a sustainable living wage, plus it also looks to eliminate generational poverty in the area.

Grant criteria included downtown revitalization, workforce development and health and well-being, and Watson said USA has met those points with beautification projects, student education and adult training programs and incorporating aspects of health and well-being.

USA is a dropout recovery-and-retention school focusing on career-tech education for at-risk students who have obtained more than 1,100 certifications since 2021. Additional benefits of the new building will allow students to earn heavy equipment certificates and aid the community through collaborations with YSU and the SOD Center in 3-D printing, 5G and job readiness courses.

Plans include providing potential recovery-to-work efforts to help recovering drug addicts, people with chronic health issues or facing legal challenges and adult education classes would be open to residents within the four-county region to help them find new opportunities in the workforce.

Leaders said the expansion will revitalize Main Street in downtown Salineville and increase the industrial training footprint in Salem. Meanwhile, it has also partnered with the Mahoning County Pathways HUB to hire community health workers, who use evidence-based strategies to obtain health services for students and their families. The Connecting Communities through Workforce Training project is a change that officials said they hope will reduce regional poverty and improve the regional standard of living.

In its ninth year, the shale academy serves students in grades 9-12 through blended learning and hands-on education to prepare them for the workforce. For information, contact (330) 932-9997 or go online to www.uticashaleschool.com.