Taking a ladder off a fire engine, while climbing up to the second story floor to perform rescues. For James Sopher’s Fire and Rescue program, that is something the Chief can rarely do for his students. However, with Merrillville high School’s new Career and Technical Education Wing, Chief Sopher will plan rescue labs, and so much more.
Our new CTE Wing opens on October 8th. It is important to go over how the wing shapes these courses for years to come. Bob Phelps, Merrillville High School’s Career and Technical Education Director, outlines how important this upgrade really is.
“No matter how awesome our instructors are – and they are very awesome – at a certain point, you’re prevented from doing as much as you want to,” Phelps said.
As the CTE Director, Phelps wants all of the courses he oversees to be the best they can be, and tries to improve all of our programs every year.
“Once it looked like the CTE Wing was going to be a reality, I got excited,” Phelps said, “because it’s going to help programs that need bigger spaces.”
With our Construction, Automotive, Welding, and Firefighting programs, they have labs that consist of hands-on activities, whether it be building constructs from scratch, fine-tuning cars, or doing rescue simulations. However, these labs rarely come by, due to the lack of space necessary to perform them.
“The program is limited by the space and equipment, and, at a certain point, you’re prevented from doing as much as you want to,” Phelps said.
The new CTE Wing not only provides the ample space provided for those programs, but opens up doors for much more.
“This new facility is going to remove a lot of those barriers related to space, and it will open up opportunities for more – more equipment, more time, more training, more projects, more certifications,” Phelps said.
Mr. James Sopher, the instructor of the Fire and Rescue program, is highlighted when it comes to more space.
“Right now, Chief Sopher’s program is basically an internal classroom in the middle of the school,” Phelps said. “They’re going to go from a basic classroom to a beautiful facility with a bigger classroom and large lab space and a second story for ladder and window practice.”
Chief Sopher himself also speaks on how his new classroom and lab is a huge upgrade for him after being at Merrillville High School for eight years.
“I’ve been stuck in this small classroom for so long that when they were talking about building the CTE building, I was very excited,” Chief Sopher said.
Chief Sopher was involved with the entire process of the building of his new space as he modeled after a real-life fire station, and designed it to best help his students in future lessons.
“The new building will help me create and align skills with real-life experiences that have to do with firefighting,” Chief Sopher said. “The new lab space helps get rid of barriers we have now, with things like operating a chainsaw, climbing ladders, dragging dummies, and spraying a fire hose.”
Not only Chief Sopher, but Mr. Taylor, one of the instructors for the Construction and Carpentry program, also speaks on the opportunity the new CTE Wing creates for him and his students.
“I’ll be able to institute a lot more hands-on exercises building-wise, because we’re limited with the space we have,” Mr. Taylor said.
Mr. Taylor had frustrations with hands-on projects before, specifically due to the lack of space needed to conduct them. However, the CTE Wing allows for his students to not only build projects, but store them as well – something that was extremely hard to do before.
“There are a lot of things that [my class] has built that we’ve had to tear down because we had no way to get it out of the building,” Mr. Taylor said. “In the new lab, if my class builds something, we can build it in the lab and we can take them out of a 16-foot garage shed.”
Overall, the new CTE Wing proves to be a positive addition to Merrillville High School, capitalizing on the room they gave their instructors to further help their students in not only their education, but also their careers.
“I was elated that we, as a school system, made an investment into the trades in such a big way,” Mr. Taylor said. “The edition will allow us the environment to do what we were supposed to be doing all along.”
