Rich Township District 227 officials celebrated the expansion of the science, technology, engineering and math campus to prepare students for careers in horticulture, construction, aviation and automotive technology during a ceremony Wednesday.
The $16 million, 32,000 square foot add-on to the district’s STEM campus in Olympia Fields is the latest in a years-long series of construction projects aiming to increase offerings for students at the district’s three schools.
“We have students who are very interested in these types of programs, and we thought if we could bring it to them, we could make them more ready when they leave us for the work they’d like to do,” said Antoinette Rayburn, who leads the STEM campus’ health and human services academy.
As freshmen, Rich Township High School students are given multiple opportunities for career exploration before declaring an academy to follow during their sophomore year and taking introductory level classes in their chosen discipline.
Rayburn said she and other leaders of career and technical education programs at the STEM campus as well as the Fine Arts and Communications campus in Richton Park act as a bridge as students plan for their post-secondary futures.
“Just working with the teachers and helping them engage students with the industry knowledge they have,” Rayburn said. “These are not traditional teachers. (They are) teachers that come from an industry like this. They’re imparting their knowledge on students directly.”
New spaces included as part of the school’s expansion allow horticulture students to grow vegetables and herbs, help aviation students practice flying in simulation pods and provide automotive technology students, like junior student Antwan Jackson, experience working on cars and other vehicles in a shop environment.
“I’ve been into cars all of my life,” Jackson said. “As long as I can remember, that’s been my thing and my passion.”
Entering high school, Jackson said his decision to pursue the automotive technology program available to him felt “automatic.” He said he’s grateful to have had the opportunity to dip his toe into work that would be required of him in a related career.
“It’s definitely made me feel like this is something I could wake up every day and proudly say I’m ready to do,” Jackson said, adding that he’s looking forward to using the foundational skills he’s built in college with the goal of entering a motorsports engineering program.
In the STEM school’s new botany and horticulture lab, junior student Jennifer Hymon was excited to show off efforts to make essential oils out of ingredients she and other agricultural science students have cultivated.
“We plan on selling these in the future,” Hymon said, gesturing toward a lavender scented oil. “The more you let them marinate, the better they smell.”
Hymon was relieved to have the opportunity to learn about agriculture in high school, saying “I didn’t see myself in literally anything else.”
She said before starting at the Rich Township High School STEM campus, she was worried about the prospect of going to college despite being interested in agriculture, as she didn’t feel she could have learned enough about the field herself to feel fully prepared. Now, she feels confident about the skills she’s built and in her long-term interest in farming.
Hymon said in addition to practicing growing crops and raising animals on campus, career and technical education professionals have provided her and other students opportunities to learn directly from practicing professionals and tour working farms.
“I’m a very, very hands-on person,” Hymon said. “If I don’t get enough hands-on, I will get bored, and I’ll actually start failing at it … so this is literally perfect.”
Board President Andrea Bonds said getting to the point of Wednesday’s ribbon cutting was “a fight every day for our students, but it’s all worth it.”
In 2019, the board voted to close Rich East High School in Park Forest, which Superintendent Johnnie Thomas hopes to transform into the Southland Career and Technical Education Center by 2028.
“The board of education (members) don’t agree on everything all the time, but they agree on things that are important to our children, and it allows for us on the administrative team to create wonderful things for our students,” he said. “I really hope as you walk this building, you see that this is not only about the students, but it’s about the community as a whole … Everything that we’re doing plants a seed that allows for our children to build and grow our community.”
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