Forty years ago, the Delaware County community agreed to create the Delaware JVS — now the Delaware Area Career Center (DACC) — and for the last 40 years, we have been a shared service among Delaware County schools and surrounding areas. Our original goals remain today – to prepare students for the workforce.

However, today’s workforce is different than when we began. In order to meet our goals, the DACC must evolve at the pace of technology and the workforce. Part of our evolution comes in the form of evaluating the buildings in which our students learn.

The DACC Board of Education recently voted to move all of the DACC educational programs to what is currently the south campus on U.S. 23. This decision came after a year-long study that included meetings with focus groups, facility studies, and input from associate districts. Consolidating to one campus will absolutely save taxpayer dollars through the reduction of duplicated services, transportation, utility and maintenance costs.

This will also allow all students to have access to more services and a wider range of courses and subjects.

Current estimations point to having a completed facility for the 2018-19 school year.

We are proud to serve a community that cares about their school districts and values unique educational options. The north campus on State Route 521 served as our original building and many community members remember supporting its creation or even attending class here. The decision to move all of the DACC programs to the south campus was not made lightly. A few of the reasons include:

• The location is visible and easily accessible to the community, an attribute that external focus groups determined was essential.

• The land provides more options for expansion.

• For each district, traveling to south campus either cut down on travel time or made little-to-no negative impact on travel time, compared to traveling to north campus.

• South campus is near the center of Delaware County.

We want to make sure the community is well informed about the process of this project, so we will be hosting two community forums on our campuses and two online Facebook Q&A sessions for anyone who cannot attend in person.

Please plan to join us on one of these dates:

• Aug. 4, 6 p.m. – South Campus’ large group instructional area (4565 Columbus Pike).

• Aug. 13, 2 p.m. – Facebook Q&A at www.Facebook.com/DelawareAreaCC.

• Aug. 25, 6 p.m. – North Campus auditorium (1610 State Route 521).

• Aug. 31, 10 a.m. – Facebook Q&A at www.Facebook.com/DelawareAreaCC.

In the meantime, please rest assured that no programs will close due to the consolidation and taxpayers will not be asked for additional funds to support this project. We look forward to speaking with community members in person and online about this topic.

If you would like to contact the Delaware Area Career Center with questions, we welcome your call! Contact us at 740-548-0708.