SCHOOL NOTEBOOK | Two MHS students place nationally at SkillsUSA

“I think we did some other damage too, but that’s two national placers, as well as a national champion,” Superintendent Eric Reid said at Wednesday’s USD 383 Manhattan-Ogden school board meeting.

SkillsUSA is a nationwide workforce development organization working with middle school, high school and college students to help them become career-ready in a variety of trades. Its annual national competition, held last month in Atlanta, features more than 6,000 state champions putting their skills to the test.

Manhattan High’s SkillsUSA team is a part of its Career and Technical Education program.

Lincoln Education Center renovation is still ongoing

Reid told the school board on Wednesday the renovation of the Lincoln Education Center, formerly the Manhattan High East Campus, continues.

He held his superintendent cabinet meeting there July 2. He also said district personnel are working out details like the locations of doors and conference rooms and how visitors will navigate the building once the work is complete.

“It’s not the easiest building to navigate, and I think even people who are familiar with the building will walk into it and won’t be familiar with the building anymore,” Reid said. “It’s going to be considerably different, so I think there’s challenges we’re going to face along the way, but we started working through those things as well.”

In the meantime in preparation to move to the Robinson Education Center to the Lincoln Education Center, Reid said staff members are scanning old documents to get rid of clutter.

McCownGordon is renovating the Lincoln Education Center for a guaranteed maximum price of $9.5 million.

The Lincoln Education Center will house the district’s administrative offices, FIT Closet, school board meeting room and a community space that will host Common Table meals.