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October 15, 2024

CTE addition would expand agriculture programs

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – Tuesday’s Sioux Falls school board meeting was short but filled with plans for new additions at the district’s CTE Academy. A nine-million-dollar project adds 16,000 square feet to the existing agriculture building.

“There’s a horticulture and a live animal component there. Both components of the horticulture have a greenhouse and lab that would be a part of that. Then, the animal part would be a kind of equipment room which would have some precision agriculture, tractors and those sorts of things,” operational services director for the district Jeff Kreiter said.

The project also links the current carpentry lab to the House Building Facility. It’s already received a 1-million-dollar grant from the State of South Dakota for equipment, and a goal completion date is scheduled for December 2025.

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“We work directly with the end users to develop these plans. So, we have an architect, engineers, electrical engineers and mechanical engineers,” Kreiter said.

School Board President Carly Reiter said the idea to grow their agriculture program has been in the works for years.

“We started out by just adding the classes and some smaller animals at the CTE, and we realized that there’s a huge demand and a large interest in our students,” Reiter said. “Even though we, as a district, really are in more of the metropolitan area, we do have a lot of students who still have an interest or who have ag in their family.”

On Tuesday afternoon, the board agreed to continue moving forward with expansion plans and will send out project bids next month. An exact schedule and timeline for the addition will be developed once a bidder is chosen.

The school district offers tours for students interested in taking classes at the CTE Academy.