- April 19, 2024
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Flagler Technical Institute — which provides a vast array of adult and community education programs — could be on its way out of its current spot at the One Corporate building in downtown Palm Coast, instead moving to area high schools.
At Tuesday’s school board workshop, superintendent Jacob Oliva and others discussed a plan that involves migrating FTI’s programs to the campuses of FPC and Matanzas High Schools as early as this summer to be ready for the upcoming school year.
A key motivator for the move is making technical programs more accessible to high students, said Oliva.
“We’ve always had a goal of giving our high school students the opportunity of being in a dual enrollment or a co-enrollment program,” he said. “We have a lot of students that want to get involved at earlier ages in technical programs, so our vision is to allow them to the platform and opportunity to do so.”
The plan calls for re-jiggering technical programs into five main “clusters.” The five are Medical (to be housed in building 10 at Matanzas), Cosmetology (to be housed at FPC and expanded to included nails and facials), Apprenticeship (also housed at FPC), child care, and CPL trucking.
One potential issue with the new sites could be transportation. Matanzas — which is slated as a potential site for the county’s GED program, is on the far northern end of Flagler County. Many students walk, bike, or ride skateboard to the current site in town.
“Moving forward, if we’re able to make this transition, we’d be committed to finding a way for students to get these classes,” Oliva told the board, even suggesting a daily shuttle bus.
Additionally, the school system has three years left until the building at One Corporate is paid off. Next year, it owes $383,931.70 — a figure that exceeds the 2014-15 projected $254,808 in net income for FTI.
“While our net income (from community education) doesn’t exceed that, it will hopefully help to shave off some of that debt cost,” Patty Wormeck, director of finance told the board.
Assistant superintendent Mike Judd discussed how to handle FTI’s existing building moving forward. Options include selling it (it’s worth roughly $1.35 million including the 7.1 acres it sits on), repairing it (which would cost $1.7 million of unbudgeted funds), renovating it (an additional $3 million on top of the $1.7 million), “mothballing” the building (maintaining while neither repairing nor renovating), or demolishing it.
“I would not think this is the greatest time to sell it,” board member Colleen Conklin said. “I think that holding onto to it, regardless of what we do with it right now, would be a smart move."
The building is scheduled to close on June 30.
