The Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board hopes a new agri-business academy at Cardinal Carter Secondary School in Leamington will better prepare students for a career in the growing greenhouse industry.
"We're trying to impress upon our students that there are great fulfilling career opportunities right in their own backyards," says board chair Barb Holland. "We can do that while working with our local industrial and business partners and we can develope graduates who can act as a talent pool to fill the positions they need."
The agri-business academy will expose students to agri-economics, logistic and supply chain management and international business and trade. That program, along with academies focused on the arts and hockey, starts in the second semester of the 2016-17 school year.
"We've been hearing an awful lot about economic development in both the city and the county, and right now we have a gem in the county, and that's our greenhouse sector," Holland says. "It's just going to continue to grow, and as it grows, there's going to be opportunities for our kids."
Holland was unable to provide a price figure for the new academies but says the board wouldn't do it if it weren't affordable. She says the money to fund the initiatives has come as the result of fiscal prudence and strategic planning at the board over the past decade.
The Catholic school board already offers a hockey skills academy and a masonry academy at F.J.Brennan Catholic High School in Windsor.
