PALATKA, Fla. — One of the newest classes at Crescent City Junior-Senior High School requires students to get their hands dirty.
The students are a part of the district's construction academy. Introduced by school district leaders like Career & Technical Education Director, Renee Hough, who says construction workers are needed in Putnam County.
“We need workers. We cannot find workers. That's one of the reasons why we started the building construction academy,” she said.
Getting students certified to work on any construction site, which Superintendent Rick Surrency says he's seeing more sites pop up as more people move to the county.
“This will really give them the certification that will provide them high demand high wage jobs,” he added.
School leaders say, because of the popularity of the construction academy, it's allowed the three high schools to now have the largest graduation rates increase out of any school in the entire state.
“It is one of those programs where students come because of that program,” Hough mentioned.
And it's training their current students to potentially come back to school to help with the district's revitalization project.
They are currently in phase one of their construction plans, with blueprints for adding a new elementary school in Palatka, another elementary school in the southern part of Putnam County and then completely remodeling Crescent City Junior-Senior High School.
“We really need to upgrade our schools just because we have the second oldest age of schools in the entire state of Florida,” Surrency explained.
Hoping the students graduating from the construction academy will play a role in bringing those blueprints to life.
“These are schools that we are building that are going to impact generations. And I can't be more proud that we are making here that have not happened since the 1920's,” he said.
In total there are three different construction phases. Surrency adds the entire revitalization plan will build or renovate nine new schools in total over the next ten years.