Roanoke County – Roanoke County Public Schools are expanding in a big way.
The school system announced Tuesday at the Board of Supervisor’s work session that the school board has officially purchased a site for the new Roanoke County Public Schools Career and Technical Education Center.
The land is adjacent to Peters Creek Road between Airport Road and Burlington Elementary School.
The plan is for this new center to replace the existing CTE facility that houses the Burton Center for Arts and Technology.
Tonight, both the School Board and Board of Supervisors heard a citizen’s advisory committee’s proposal for the new center and discussed plans for the future
The site was selected based on the recommendations of the advisory committee, which was appointed by both the Board of Supervisors and the School Board.
The committee has worked for over a year to find a site, as well as identify the needs of the new center, and they presented their findings at the meeting tonight, which included information they gathered while touring other CTE centers in Virginia.
They hope that the new center will benefit not only the students it will serve but the economy as well.
”To celebrate the economic development of this property, to take it from Salem, to bring it to Roanoke County, what it’s going to do for that area, in my mind, is phenomenal,” Tim Greenway, a member of the School Board said. “What it’s going to do for students is almost secondary to the economic development that’s going to come from this.”
Several members of the advisory board voiced their opposition to the scale of the center due to the potential cost and there has not yet been a consensus on an exact budget or plan for this project as of yet.
You can view the full map of the proposal below:
