The school system, which serves 10 districts in Butler County and Northern Hamilton County — Northwest Schools — has been growing beyond its classroom capacity of recent years, said Butler Tech Superintendent Jon Graft.
Graft described it as “somewhat of a crisis.”
He said a record 1,600 high school students applied for the 2017-2018 school year for 1,000 spots.
“One of the biggest barriers to Butler Tech’s growth right now is the state’s school funding formula. We are currently on a cap, so we do not receive additional state funding even if we add more students,” Graft said Monday.
Ohio’s biennium budget is being negotiated through the Ohio Legislature as the budget’s June 30 deadline approaches.
“In his budget, Ohio Gov. John Kasich has proposed raising the cap for career technical schools by five percent. The (Ohio) House is proposing raising the cap by 5.5 percent,” he said.
“With the increasing demand for Butler Tech programs – even with that increase – we would likely still be on that higher cap next year. To be fully funded, Butler Tech might need the increase to be closer to 10 percent, or simply have the cap for (career education) schools eliminated completely.”
“Career technical schools like Butler Tech are here to help meet the needs of Ohio’s business community by meeting their workforce needs and developing tomorrow’s talent. In order for us to meet those needs and expand programming, we need to be fully funded for it,” he said.
The fast-growing Butler Tech is already one of the largest career schools among Ohio’s 88 counties.
The career school serves 27,000 full- and part-time high school juniors and seniors — and adult students — on five campuses throughout the county and is one of only three, publicly funded career schools in Southwest Ohio.
Butler Tech has 152 partnerships with local businesses.
In February school officials announced it will allow enroll up to 80 high school sophomores for the first time in its history.
STORY & VIDEO: Butler tech buys Americana property for expansion
The same month saw school officials also announce the $2.75 million purchase of 36 acres along the western border of Monroe — including a portion of the former Americana Amusement Park site — that will eventually be renovated into a new adult education campus for the career school system.
That new school site in Monroe might be part of the overcrowding solution for high school juniors and seniors seeking career instruction. There is no similar overcrowding of adult education classes, said school officials.
“The purchase of the property at the LeSourdsville Lake (Americana) site will give us future flexibility in adding or expanding high school programs, as will plans to expand the Bioscience Center in West Chester Township,” he said.
Besides the five campuses of Butler Tech the school also has “associate programs” at each of its 10 member school districts where various career education programs are taught on site.
“In the near term, we have been working with our associate school districts to expand Butler Tech programming in their buildings,” said Graft.
“Butler Tech added 11 classrooms in associate school buildings last year, and we will add another 11 classrooms in the coming school year. This allows us to make popular programs like Biomedical Science and engineering programs more accessible to students,” he said.
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