Students Prepare For Trades At New MPACT Facility

These are just a few of the students who get bussed in every day to attend MPACT.

Now that the ribbon is cut and students are in the work centers and classrooms, it’s a special day for principal Marsha Baugh

“You know you sit there and you look at plans after plans and you go to other schools and when we finally walked in here and things were in place, like they said, it was a dream come true for these students. That’s what’s important, it’s exactly what these students need,” said Baugh.

The school opened up at the old Montgomery Mall, now known as One Center.

It gives students over 70,000 square feet of space to learn about different trades.

“It’s a good feeling, I like it, to know that I’m part of something, a movement,” said Kenterious Porter.

Many of these students have been going to MPACT for years, just at the old location.

Ronald Williams is a senior who wants to go into the army and work as an electrical engineer, a trade he’s very familiar with now.

“I’m fixing to strip the insulation off. then I’m going to hook it to the light switch. This is the black wire, it’s hot. this is the neutral and this is the ground,” said Williams.

Even though the facility is brand new, Baugh is already looking ahead to the future. The school added two new programs this, industrial systems and medical science. But there’s room for a lot more.

“So we continue to work with business and industry so they can tell us where those needs are. One thing that we are looking to integrate into our programs is a plumbing component because that is a vital need in our area,” said Baugh.