Career Resource Center Director Greg Pagnard meets a visitor at the double doors leading into the new Educational Service Center and takes a left down the hall leading to the new space the CRC calls home.
In one classroom, electrical and machine parts are set up on a board for an electrician course. Another room is filled with students in a clinical nursing assistant class. The classroom is set up for instruction on one side and as a hospital room on another.
More students filled the seats of another converted room while another room was set up for whatever purpose it needs to fill.
The building and rooms are familiar, having before held fifth- and sixth-grade Brown County Students, but different students now roam the halls.
At the end of last school year the doors to Brown County Intermediate School were closed for good and this fall the building reopened as the Educational Service Center. Along with housing the CRC, the plan is for the Educational Service Center to be home to a day care/preschool program with the goal of being the spot to educate people of all ages.
An update on the status of the Early Childhood Center opening date will be coming soon.
The CRC is a place adults and teens can go to earn their high school equivalency, get credentials or certificates for a job and further their education beyond high school. Computers are available for the public to use, and staff offer help filling out job applications and signing up for college.
WorkOne is also in the CRC. WorkOne provides free assistance to job seekers and employers, like employment counseling, veterans services, services for people with disabilities and computer classes. The office also can help people assess their current skills and improve them, and connect people to job-finding services, like Indiana Career Connect.
Moving the CRC to the former intermediate school building and opening the Educational Service Center was part of the cost-cutting strategies the Brown County School Board of Trustees approved in February.
Fourth-graders last school year remained in their elementary schools for fifth grade this year. Fifth-graders moved to the newly renamed Brown County Middle School for sixth grade this school year. The middle school now serves all the district’s sixth- through eighth-graders.
In the past 10 years, the school district has lost the equivalent of two schools’ worth of students. Further declines are projected as the county’s 65-and-up population increases and the child-rearing-age population decreases.
To keep the number of certified staff in line with the closure, and to avoid firing teachers, retirement incentives were also offered to teachers and non-certified staff like custodians last school year. The district needed to save at least $500,000 for this school year. If five certified teachers decide to retire, that equaled about $450,000. In March six certified and 10 non-certified staff members had already decided to take the incentive to retire early.
At the Oct. 14 school board meeting, the school district’s financial consultant Bob Harris told the members that the strategies were working to help the district’s budget this year.
“2021 was a very good financial year for Brown County Schools,” he said.
“The two things the board did last spring by offering early an buy out to our retirees and closing the intermediate school has really helped the revenue stream and the expenses, so much that yearend balances for all of your budget funds will be at least what they started with and probably a little bit more. It’s been a very good year financially.”
The move
Planning to move the CRC began in August, Pagnard said.
The move began on Sept. 20 when the certified clinical medical assistant and certified nursing assistant courses were moved to the medical labs at the ESC, which are the former BCIS science classrooms.
Over fall break the remaining CRC class materials were moved to the ESC, Pagnard said.
“Currently we are working on settling into our new space. It was important to our staff and students that we were not closed during the move so classes continued during the move,” he said.
“The Brown County Schools maintenance team did a great job of moving things over with very little disruption to the classes.”
The CRC is located in the south hallway of the ESC with more room to grow, giving it a “much different feel now,” Pagnard said.
“We are no longer cramped into a small space. I would liken the new feel to that of going to a small college,” he said.
“Each medical course has a lab now. All of our other offerings have a classroom with projectors, computers, tables and chairs. We still offer a free public computer lab. We have a conference room now. We also have room to grow down the east hallway.”
Having more room is a benefit of moving to the ESC from the former location on East Main Street. Their new address is 260 Schoolhouse Lane.
“We now have the ability to offer more courses that earn certifications and opportunities for well-paying jobs. We can host job fairs. This space will help the CRC better support our community,” Pagnard said.
The former CRC building sits empty currently.
The school board had voted to sell the property and established a minimum price of $500,000 after having two appraisals done.
This summer the Brown County Commissioners were the only ones to bid on the property and their offer was $445,000.
The plan was to use the CRC building as the new prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor’s office is currently in a former Army barracks and shares a parking lot with the Brown County Courthouse. At the Oct. 6 commissioners meeting, Biddle said that the commissioners were considering withdrawing their offer to purchase the Career Resource Center building from the school district.
Brown County Schools Superintendent Emily Tracy said there are no solidified plans for that building yet.
Pagnard said it is important for the community to know the CRC is open and the staff there is ready to serve them.
“Please come and see us at the CRC,” he said.
