{"id":450533,"date":"2026-09-28T23:12:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T23:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/450533\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T23:12:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T23:12:39","slug":"plano-isd-cte-center-set-for-october-opening-plano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/450533\/","title":{"rendered":"Plano ISD CTE Center set for October opening | Plano"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plano ISD<\/a>\u2019s Career and Technical Education Center is set to open soon, bringing new and expanded programs to students.<\/p>\n

The overview<\/p>\n

The center was initially approved as part of PISD\u2019s 2022 bond program, and started construction in November 2024. Voters approved more than $76.7 million to fund the center\u2019s construction in 2022.<\/p>\n

The 150,000-square-foot CTE Center is \u201cright on schedule\u201d to open in late October, Principal Jean Laswell said.<\/p>\n

The center will house 19 programs, broken up into the following nine pathways:<\/p>\n

architecture and construction<\/p>\n

arts, AV technology and communications<\/p>\n

business, marketing and finance<\/p>\n

hospitality and tourism<\/p>\n

health science<\/p>\n

human services<\/p>\n

information technology<\/p>\n

manufacturing<\/p>\n

transportation, distribution and logistics<\/p>\n

A closer look<\/p>\n

While Plano ISD\u2019s enrollment<\/a> has decreased in every school year since 2010-11, the district\u2019s CTE programs have seen growth.<\/p>\n

In the 2019 school year, the district\u2019s CTE enrollment was around 23,031, with 1,400 industry-based certifications awarded. Last school year, the district\u2019s CTE enrollment was around 27,184 students and nearly 4,100 industry-based certifications were awarded.<\/p>\n

In that same time period, PISD\u2019s total enrollment dropped by almost 9,000 students.<\/p>\n

Laswell said that the district has started introducing CTE programs earlier, so students in elementary and middle schools can start learning about career pathways available to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this CTE Center is kind of the culmination of a lot of work that got the department to this point,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Laswell added that the CTE Center was built with the future in mind.<\/p>\n

The design of the building accounts for future expansion and adaptability as equipment needs to be updated and even as full programs are phased in and out as workforce needs change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all about how we can make those spaces as fluid as possible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Zooming out<\/p>\n

PISD officials worked with community partners to identify \u201chigh demand and high wage\u201d career paths to teach in the CTE Center, Laswell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe met with a lot of industry partners and the community and really developed some ideas about what the needs were,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One such program is radiology, which will be offered at the center. Superintendent Theresa Williams said the program was considered when discussing workforce needs with Collin College and local health care partners.<\/p>\n

PISD is partnering with Galveston College to offer the radiology program, and it will be the first ISD in Dallas-Fort Worth to carry it.<\/p>\n

Credit Union of Texas is also partnering with PISD to open a student-run Smart Branch bank.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned<\/p>\n

Sections of the CTE Center will be open to the public in the coming months, with services offered by students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a building that is going to provide opportunities for our kids, but also services for our community,\u201d PISD CTE Director Karen Buechman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plano ISD\u2019s Career and Technical Education Center is set to open soon, bringing new and expanded programs to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[32188,61726,32187,154974,154972,154973,160,162,2336,161],"class_list":["post-450533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-career-and-technical-education","tag-credit-union-of-texas","tag-cte-center","tag-galveston-college","tag-jean-laswell","tag-karen-buechman","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-isd","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}