BILLINGS- Billings School District 2 is moving forward with plans to purchase a downtown building for $4.5 million.
The plan calls for moving administration offices and creating more classroom space for the district's popular and overcrowded health sciences program.
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Nurse practitioner and teacher Kristy Martinez oversees students in a health class at the Billings Career Center.
“Make sure that we know that we are ensuring that the gate belt is on properly, nice and snug,” Martinez said to the class.
Under a watchful eye, Katherine Gause lifted a student from the hospital bed to the wheelchair.
“My goal is to work as a CNA,” Gause said.
Gause is a senior in the health sciences program, which is giving her a great opportunity.
“To get past my practical exam and then start working my way up and going to college for a practical nurse and maybe try to go for a registered nurse and whatever else I can,” Gause said.
She is one of 500 students in the program, which needs more space than the Career Center can offer to accommodate about 100 students on the waiting list.
The district says buying the old bank building at 3rd Avenue North and North 30th Street and moving the administration out of the Lincoln Center, will create that space.
“By being down here in the Lincoln Center downtown, students will potentially have the opportunity to work with some of our medical community and the partnerships we're building,” said Christine Simonsen, the district's director of health sciences and community education.
Her main role is to develop a health science charter school in the Lincoln Center.
“We hope that we can keep the youth here in our community rather than them going out of state for education or for jobs,” Simonsen said. “We can provide those opportunities right here.”
The school district administration will move to the old Rocky Mountain Bank building across the street from the Lincoln Center.
That will make the classrooms available on the second and third floors for a much-needed expansion.
“Many of our kids are choosing to drop out because they don't see a pathway moving forward,” said Dr. Erwin Garica, School District 2 superintendent. “But we can absolutely hear and find those themes of the things that they want to achieve and attain, and one of those is healthcare sciences.”
The Lincoln Center classrooms may be ideal for the Pathways Program.
And it's anticipated that the new charter school will be ready for classes like this for the 2027-2028 school year.
“We're really excited about it,” Simonsen said.“Our goal is really to equip kids so they can get the jobs that this market is offering currently," Garcia said.
“They will focus and help you so it's really by student, and I think they do really good at that,” Gause said.
