VoTech Recovery

Slidell VoTech has been dormant since Katrina hit over two years ago.
(click on pictures for full-sized version)


Heck, the sign hasn't been changed since before the storm.
Curious as to what will happen with the building, I did some googling and found a few things.

From
New Orleans City Business dot com Louisiana Technical College Provost Kim Rugon said job training facilities were the hardest to replace since expensive equipment is needed to teach welding and machine shop skills.

“You go to rebuild your house and you have to wait eight months for an electrician and why is that? Because we can’t train them because we don’t have the facilities,” Rugon said.

If the $11 million in bonds to rebuild LTC campuses in the Ninth Ward and Slidell doesn’t arrive soon, Rugon said the future looks as dark.

“It is going to be like Katrina hit again,” she said.•

Then I ran across this at the St. Tammany Parish School Board website .....plans are to build a consolidated college and high school campus on 25 acres near Lacombe. The space allocated to each institution has not yet been finalized.
...The learning park, referred to as “University Square,” would include facilities for Southeastern Louisiana University, the University of New Orleans, and Delgado Community College and would be the first complex in the state where colleges share the same site. The high school would teach advanced courses in science, technology, and the arts..... Officials hope to make vocational-technical training also a part of the concept, since the Slidell Technical College was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina two years ago and has not been rebuilt. Vo-tech students from St. Tammany have had to travel to out-of-parish campuses in Bogalusa and Hammond to complete their programs. Parish President Davis said the Parish would not wait for the vo-tech school in Slidell to be rebuilt by the state. “We want to move on this,” he stated.


View Larger Map

The site lies east of Louisiana 434 and north of Interstate 12. Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Development Co., part of one of the largest timber producing companies in the nation, donated the land, which is part of 885 acres set aside for a town center development surrounded by 1,400 homes.

The high school component would accommodate about 300 students. Students from all public high schools would have the opportunity to take advanced studies in science, technology, and the arts in a university-like setting. St. Tammany Parish Public School System Superintendent Gayle Sloan said that the students would still be based at their home high schools and attend the basic academic classes and extracurricular activities there, then travel to the centrally-located high school for special studies. Students would be expected to be self-motivated, focused in their studies, and well-disciplined.

“This is going to be a fantastic opportunity for us,” Mrs. Sloan stated. 'We see this learning park having tremendous potential for all of our students. The park is intended to meet the diverse needs of our entire Parish community.”