YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Two Mahoning Valley career and technical centers will open this fall with additional space and new programs to serve more students and prepare them for in-demand careers.
Both Mahoning County Career and Technical Center in Canfield, Ohio, and Trumbull Career and Technical Center in Champion will start the new school year with new and expanded buildings and programs.
MCCTC is opening a 35,000-square foot addition, called the LEAD – Leadership, Employment, Advancement, Discovery – Center, that will allow 100 more students to enroll.
“The LEAD Center was part of our [career tech] expansion three years ago,” says MCCTC Superintendent John Zehentbauer. “We were turning away students. There were a lot of complaints about students being turned away from programs like welding and machining and automation and computer science and a variety of other programs. So we put in a grant and we received a grant to add programming.”
Programs in the new space include industrial robotics and automation, computer networking and cybersecurity, AI systems and software development and HVAC/electricity. Welding also will move into the new part of the building.
The district received a $11.4 million state career tech expansion grant for the $16 million project. The addition includes about 12,500 square feet where students in the new programs will work together.
One group of cybersecurity students will work to try to hack automation systems used by students in those programs. Other students will work to protect those systems from the hacks.
MCCTC also will open a Medical Wellness & Education Center this fall. It’s a partnership with Mercy Health and Cadence Care Network.
The $7 million center is being funded in part through a $5 million grant awarded to MCCTC by the Appalachian Community Innovation Centers program. It will serve as a school-based health clinic and a community-access facility for both physical and mental health care. It will also serve as a place for MCCTC Adult Center students in the Hannah E. Mullins School of Practical Nursing to earn clinical training.
TCTC EXPANSION
TCTC’s roughly 13,000-square foot expansion will provide space for industrial technology training, career exploration and mental health services. The $6.4 million project is funded by a $5.2 million Appalachian Community Innovation Centers grant and a $2.5 million career technical education equipment grant.
TCTC’s industrial technology program will move into the new space, allowing more students to enroll.
“Our idea for this much space is that eventually we would like to have it be a two-teacher program,” says Anina Karlovic, program supervisor.
The new lab is more than double the former space, which will be taken over by another TCTC program. This fall, industrial technology will see its largest class of incoming juniors with 23.
Industrial technology includes computer integrated manufacturing including robotics, automation and logistics programming
Paula Baco, TCTC’s high school director, says the expansion will open the program, started during the 2024-25 school year, to more interested students and better facilitate the work flow.
“This will definitely give it a better flow, a better feel,” she says, adding that space was tight in the former classroom.
With an eventual goal of a second teacher in the lab, “… the students can all start basic and then pick and choose their tracks for senior year and expand…,” Baco says.
The program already enables students to work on different equipment rather than all of them focused on one type of machine at the same time.
“That’s been kind of cool because [the instructor] will have some kids working on troubleshooting the mechatronics, and then he had two that were really into the manual machining, and so he’s working on that with them,” Karlovic explains. “And then other ones really liked the CNC programming.”
That broad scope is already reaping benefits for students. Two students enrolled in the program are working at a company this summer and that company wants to hire them to work during the school year as well, Baco says.
And the expanded industrial technology program is in response to what industries in the region need. Karlovic says she attends Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition meetings and hears about those companies’ workforce needs. The diversity of those companies and their employees’ required skills informed how the career center structured the program. Rather than having students focused on one area within industrial technology, they’re exposed to a variety of equipment. That helps them prepare for careers at different manufacturing companies.
CAREER EXPLORATION
The other new section is for career exploration for younger students interested in learning about TCTC programs and the careers to which they lead.
“The issue that we’ve had over the past few years is that we have more and more schools calling us at different grade levels,” Baco says. “They want to come and they want to see programs.”
Center administrators didn’t want to turn schools away but needed to strike a balance so those visits don’t affect teaching time. The new space provides a way to achieve that with the help of TCTC student ambassadors, who are top students in their programs.
“Instead of taking the students to their rooms and the students having to stop what they’re doing, those ambassadors would come here,” Baco says.
Different areas in the career exploration section would be tailored to different grade levels. It will also allow schools to use the space for career exploration projects.
“And the other thing is, everything we purchase in there, we made mobile,” Baco says. It can be moved from the lab area and used during a center career fair, for example.
Also added with the expansion is an area for offices for Cadence Care Network social workers. The center has worked for years with Cadence.
“We contract with them for two full-time social workers that are here during the school year,” Baco explains. “And in the summer, we’ve noticed that the students still access their social worker.”
Sometimes that student’s family meets with the social worker and because of limited building access during the summer, those meetings happen in the cafeteria. But the new space includes a separate entrance that will allow those counselors to see students, or others from the community, outside of school hours.
Employees from Ohio Means Jobs also will use that space when working with students, such as signing them up for summer work programs.
After being there for the May 2025 groundbreaking and watching the project take shape, Karlovic and Baco look forward to seeing students take advantage of the new opportunities.
“We’re excited,” Baco says.
DeSalvo Construction is the general contractor for the TCTC project and GPD is the architect.
At MCCTC, J. Herbert Construction is the general contractor for both the LEAD and wellness centers and the architects for the projects are Thomas Madej of Team 8e Architecture and Strollo Architects, respectively.
Moving some programs into the building addition made room for MCCTC to add a nail tech program in the main part of the building. The nail tech program is an addition to the regular cosmetology path. It wasn’t funded with grant money because it’s not a career that’s considered in demand, but it was added because students wanted it, Zehentbauer says.
“We were able to add 25 students in that program,” he adds. “That program needed a classroom space, so we were able to repurpose our other space to make that a classroom space for nail tech.”
Enrollment in the new and expanded programs is strong as the school year approaches.
“They’re all relatively full,” the superintendent says. “We’re in a good place. We didn’t have to turn anybody away, so I think we’re in a really good place. There’s a couple programs that were full, but students chose to move to other programs, so we’re able to accommodate them in the other programs. We’re excited.”
Pictured at top: Paula Baco, left, and Anina Karlovic, high school director and program supervisor, respectively, at Trumbull Career and Technical Center, stand in a new industrial technology area included in an expansion at the school.
