Central Westmoreland CTC eyes campus, program expansion as enrollment increases

Central Westmoreland Career and Technology Center is outgrowing the buildings on its 44-acre campus in New Stanton — noting a more than 500-student increase in enrollment in the past five years.

One of more than 80 career and technical education centers statewide, Central Westmoreland will educate 1,518 students this year — up nearly 200 from 2024-25. The school is taking a twofold approach to handle the recent influx in students, said Administrative Director Jason Lucia.

Targeting a spring 2027 completion, the school aims to break ground on a building by November or December to house its electrical academy program — the only one of its kind in the state, Lucia said. An exact cost is yet to be determined, but a $200,000 state grant will cover construction of the building’s steel framework, metal siding and roof.

An engineering firm is helping the school develop a 10-year campus expansion plan, which could add up to four or five more buildings.

But Central Westmoreland also is working to bring its programs directly to its 10 sending school districts. This fall, Greensburg Salem and Mt. Pleasant Area high school students will be able to receive state-certified career and technical credits by enrolling in courses at their high school.

“Space has been an issue with our large capacity of students over the last couple of years,” Lucia said, “so we’ve had options to look at either building additional buildings or to expand, but some of the (career and technical centers), unlike us, don’t have the ability to build.

“What we’ve been able to do in lieu of building at this point is working with our sending districts and the spaces that they have available in their high school buildings to be able to place career and tech ed programs there for students to access them.”

The two pilot programs — early childhood education at Greensburg Salem and business and entrepreneurship at Mt. Pleasant Area — will be taught by the teachers in each district.

Central Westmoreland assessed each school’s existing curriculum for those topics and helped administrators design courses that meet the state’s career and technical education standards.

The pilots expand upon Central Westmoreland’s Aspiring Educators program, launched at Mt. Pleasant Area High School in 2023-24. Students from Mt. Pleasant, Belle Vernon, Yough and Southmoreland participated, Lucia said. The class will be taught at Hempfield Area’s Stanwood Elementary by a Central Westmoreland instructor this year.

Now, students can earn up to 18 college credits through Seton Hill University — paid for by Central Westmoreland — if they maintain a “B” average grade throughout the Aspiring Educators program.

The program is open to junior and senior students.

In addition to traditional classwork, it includes elementary and middle school classroom observation, college visits and mentorship from veteran teachers.

Aspiring Educators and the early childhood education pilot at Greensburg Salem are meant to help tackle the statewide teacher shortage, Lucia said.

“We know that that is an issue within the state based on everything we have heard in the last couple of years from the governor’s office — that we need to put a focus on educating our children earlier and in better capacities,” he said.

Preparing for the workforce

For the past two years, Tiffany Smietana-Lysell has pushed for Greensburg Salem High School’s early childhood education program to become state certified — a move that could prepare students to take their Child Development Associate certificate right after high school.

With Central Westmoreland’s help, this is the first year that opportunity will be available to students.

The high school’s Cubs Den preschool program for children ages 3 to 5 was established in 1997. High school students help run the program, handling different sets of tasks based on their grade level.

The level one class exposes students to the fundamentals of teaching — including strategies and classroom and behavior management. In level two, students practice leading lessons and managing the preschool.

Level three students spend the final three class periods of each school day managing the preschool.

On Mondays and Fridays, when the preschool is not open, students will shadow other local preschools and gain exposure to other sectors of education — such as speech language pathology, special education and occupational therapy.

Smietana-Lysell has three students in the level three program this year. Upon graduation, they will be able to enter the workforce on a higher pay and management scale than if they had not been enrolled in the program in high school.

Some colleges in Western Pennsylvania will pay for a student’s tuition if they work at a child care facility while completing their education, Smietana-Lysell said.

“They would essentially go into the workforce and leave high school with no debt,” she said.

Smietana-Lysell is hopeful programs like these will bolster the teacher workforce.

“Putting more educators from high school directly into the workforce, I think, will have a very positive impact on the community,” she said, “because they’ll have their networking connections, and the connections between parents and community and school are really important, so they’ll get to foster all that.”

‘Ahead of the game’

Allan Bilinsky, assistant principal at Mt. Pleasant Area Senior High School, said the school’s new business and entrepreneurship program could help students start pursuing an associate’s degree before they graduate from high school.

“We’re putting our kids ahead of everybody else when they step out and get a job,” he said. “We have a lot of kids in our district who end up going to a trade school or start their own business or go to (Westmoreland County Community College). So this just puts them ahead of the game (for) when they want to start something.”

The 19-credit program is designed as a four-year course, Bilinsky said. It combines concepts from courses already taught at the school — including business, marketing and personal finance.

Mt. Pleasant and Southmoreland middle schools are slated to receive pilot programs in 2026-27. They will be Central Westmoreland’s first middle school-level programs, Lucia said.

Mt. Pleasant’s service occupations program will be open to the school’s life skills students, he said. Southmoreland’s program will focus on engineering, STEM and construction.

“There is a need for earlier career exploration and understanding that we feel is best to start somewhere in that middle school range,” Lucia said.

Central Westmoreland students have another opportunity this year to get a jump on their college education through Westmoreland County Community College’s WOLF Scholars program, which is offering dual enrollment credits to students at six local career and technical centers.

At Central Westmoreland, students can earn dual enrollment credits for taking one of two blueprint reading classes or an AutoCAD software course, Lucia said.

’Next step in life’

The push to prepare students for life after graduation has been Lucia’s focus since he started at Central Westmoreland five years ago.

“Five years ago, we sat down and talked about how we prepare students for the next step in their life,” he said, “because a lot of times, discussions revolve around ‘How are we preparing them for college?’ or ‘How are we preparing them for the workforce?’

“I wanted to look at ‘How can we as an institution better prepare every student on a regular basis for their next step in life?’ It will be their choice what that is, but they will be able to say that they are fully prepared to be able to make that decision.”

School administrators had to rethink how they were using students’ time, Lucia said — shifting their focus toward dual enrollment, work-based experiences, careers and practical life skills such as financial literacy.

“We do try to make sure that we look at things on a student-by-student basis to get them placed as closely to their interests — and the areas that they’re going to be successful in as well — before they leave us,” Lucia said. “Because, again, if we don’t do justice to that, then we’re just wasting all of their time.

“And then by the time they leave us, they’re still trying to figure out what’s next.”