News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
White County Schools moving forward with a plan to renovate space and update its culinary arts program.
Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said they plan to shift the program to have a stronger focus on dietetics and nutrition. Dronebarger said they collaborated with the teachers involved in the program find a solution that would make everyone happy while giving students the best opportunities possible.
“We see ways that if we get into dietetics and we start talking about healthy eating that we could see this spinning off to connect with our health and science classes,” Dronebarger said. “We also could see our agriculture classes being involved as well, so we could see some cross-curricular things that could be involved.”
Dronebarger said their architects and engineers are working on the logistics to fully renovate the current culinary space at the high school. Dronebarger said the exact timeline is still unclear but they hope to start with the demolition as early as next summer.
“We’re excited about that opportunity to not only be reinventing our kitchen space for our culinary program but also a classroom space for them to do some book work study as well,” Dronebarger said.
Dronebarger said school officials talked with the state to make sure the new emphasis of the program could provide students with post-secondary credits.
“It also is what would be considered a level two classification for CTE programs with the state,” Dronebarger said. “So it actually gets us a little more brownie points with the state as far as offering some higher level classes for our students.”
Dronebarger said the pivot will also allow them to have grant funding left over after the renovation that can be used elsewhere.
“Maybe some other materials, some supplies, maybe some extra equipment,” Dronebarger said. “And some of the other areas that are already being addressed with the ISM grant will now actually have a chance to get some other items as well.”
Dronebarger said his team started working on the current plans for the culinary arts program after the school board declined a bid for an all-new culinary kitchen last July. That kitchen would have been located in a different building than the current one but the bid came in $200,000 over budget.
