New Warren Tech South Guaranteed for Dakota
Photo Credits: Warren Tech South Design Advisory Group
The plan for the location of the new Warren Tech South Campus is to build it in the outer parking lot of the Dakota Ridge campus, and extend it between the grass area and Coal Mine.The current west parking lot (senior lot) will be extended to compensate for the loss of parking.
November 15, 2019
The fall of 2021 presents a new opportunity for the students in southern Colorado, but especially for Dakota Ridge High School–the new Warren Tech South will be built on the campus of Dakota Ridge.
The decision to add Warren Tech South has been a long time dream of Dr. Jim Jelinek, principal at Dakota Ridge, and has been a goal of many other schools in the southern Colorado area.
“For years we have felt that students in the south, so Dakota Ridge, Columbine, Chatfield, have been at a disadvantage for these programs,” Jelinek said. Because of lengthy travel time to campuses and programs filling too quickly, students in the south often have lesser access to Warren Tech opportunities.
After the bond was granted from 5A and 5B that made the Warren Tech South Campus a possibility, it became a question of where it couldn’t be placed. “I’ve been a long advocate for ‘hey, we’ve got 50 acres out here, if we’re looking for a spot we can find a spot at Dakota Ridge,’” Jelinek said.
Another program offered at Warren Tech South will be a theatre program. The theater built will be a sort of “convention center” as Dr. Jelinek puts it, and while there were multiple ways that it could have been built, “…they’re gonna go with this one, which is a traditional auditorium, but these seats move in and out so you can move things around. All of the walls can move the video and sound stuff,” Jelinek said.
While Warren Tech did consider land near Saltera and D’Evelyn, those areas still weren’t as far south as they could be to give access to all students, so Dakota Ridge became the best option. Jelinek says the school accepted the proposition “…with great celebration! We were like, ‘yes, we’ll take it!’”
As the Dakota Ridge news brief released on Thursday, Oct 24 stated, construction on Warren Tech South will be starting before the end of the 2019-2020 school year. The plan, according to documents released by Warren Tech along with some explanation from Dr. Jelinek, is to build Warren Tech South in the outer parking lot.
There are multiple fascinating programs being incorporated into Warren Tech South. According to the press release, these include aviation, arts and design, hospitality, and health sciences. Dr. Jelinek also talked about how Warren Tech is partnering with other companies for these programs and funding, and they are projected to open in the fall of 2021 and be available to the current freshmen and sophomores during their junior and senior years.
While it will primarily benefit students from Columbine, Chatfield, Dakota, and even Conifer, it is open district-wide–meaning anyone could participate in the program. Having Warren Tech South on Dakota’s campus may also, says Dr. Jelinek hopefully, encourage choice enrollment at Dakota Ridge.
“Eventually they’ll build a whole hanger, so then their plan is they’d have classroom simulations for pilot, and then obviously enough room you could build and paint [a plane]” Dr. Jelinek said. With the Warren Tech South installment, there are plans to implement an aviation program that will be developed in stages. According to Jelinek, it will begin with flight simulators and piloting classes, and then progress into the engineering and mechanics of aviation
https://warrentech.jeffcopublicschools.org/
