They all agreed that Syracuse is in desperate need of a technical high school, but what the school board commissioners couldn't agree upon tonight was how to make it happen.
"You can't just take that program and stick it on the end of a high school," Vice-president Cynthia Kirby said at the Board of Education meeting.
"Our district needs a technical high school, we need a downtown facility but the question is where?"
The Syracuse City School District has the fewest high schools compared to its Big Five counterparts, Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers and New York City and is the only one without a technical high school.
Commissioner Ned Deuel said after the meeting that the reason for the lack is “because we have let that slide and not do anything.”
In August, the board planned a full renovation and addition to the Greystone Building and the building behind it which currently houses the 500 students enrolled in the city’s part-time technical school.
Three months later, commissioners have realized that their original plans are no longer an option.
“We can’t do the Greystone Building” Deuel said after the meeting.
“Since there are no students in it we can’t get state aid on it... [but] there’s another building behind it, that we’re recommending…once we finish the renovations we are going to connect the two buildings then the state will see it as one building and we’d be able to get $30 million dollars to do the Greystone Building”
If built, Lowengard said, the full time technical high school would take three years to complete and would cost approximately $60-million.
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