As the last school year came to a close, students held interest towards the construction of the new CTE building, as this is where many of the future classes would take place. This year, students and teachers feel the angst for the opening of the building and are ready to move into their new classes.

One such faculty member is Culinary Arts teacher Angela Stutz. This has been Stutz eighth year teaching at Perry, in which she has provided much for the school, concerning banquets and catering events.

“I am most excited to have that kind of space to be able to work in…It’ll just be nice to have our own area,” Stutz stated.
Additionally, Principal Dan Serrano, shares the same notion. Running the school since its inception in 2007, Serrano has been keeping track of the updates towards the finishing date of the building.

“I just toured it on Friday (Aug. 1) and they are on time,” Serrano mentioned.

Kacee Perry: For the CTE building, do you know what major classes are being moved into it?

Angela Stutz: All of the CTE classes, so that would be Marketing, Early Childhood, Fashion, Sports Medicine, TV Production, Digital Photography, Graphic Design, two science labs.

KP: What then will be the areas for these classes? Will culinary be downstairs?

AS: Yes, two culinary labs downstairs, the medical professions downstairs I believe, and marketing because the marketing is going to have a student store. And so that will all be on the bottom level. And there is two culinary rooms this year. Before there was just one culinary room, but now there’s two eighteen-hundred square foot culinary kitchens.

KP: As you said, there is going to be a student store, though what are they going to be selling, will it be like the other student store?

AS: I believe it is going to sell things like Cup-o-Noodles, and I think they are going to sell drinks, and I believe that is where you will be able to buy t-shirts and other things like that. I believe they are going to sell kind of what is in the vending machine, all chips and snacks and things like that.

KP: What is going to be the set-up of the kitchens?

AS: Well, there is going to be, now there is going to be eight stations, instead of what we are used to six stations. And most of the equipment will be around the perimeter of the room, so there will be things like: an oven that can do combination cooking, there’ll be, each group will have their own stoves, that has the oven and four burners, there is something called a Salamander, that’s for broiling things and cooking the top of things. We’ll have our own dishwasher and each kitchen is going to have its own washer and dryer. There’s going to be a 65 inch TV monitor in there, so when I demonstrate at my front station, you’ll be able to see everything on the 65 inch monitor. There’ll be special tables for working on pastries, like right now we just have stainless steel tables, but we’ll have wood tables that are specially used for making pastries. Just a ton of hand-washing sinks and it’s just going to be the perimeter is just going to have all of the equipment on it, a fryer for making French fries, a deep-fryer.

KP: Will the new building effect parking?

Dan Serrano: No, no change.

KP: Do you still think there are going to be classes in the bus barns?

AS: I’m assuming because of number of students, we constantly have students still coming to this school. And Chandler starts so early.

KP: Do you know the date it is going to be finished?

DS: It is supposed to be done October 1st, so we can move in over fall break. And I just heard it on Friday (Aug. 1) and they are on time.

AS: They just did a walk-through on Friday, this past Friday and they tell me the “punch-list” is what it is called and a contractor walks through and makes sure this outlet works, that works, they kind of go through and “punch” everything out and say the lights works, the electricity works, makes sure there is air conditioning. They’ll do that the first week of October, over break and my understanding is that the second week of October break they will allow us teachers to start moving in.

KP: What are you most excited for?

AS:I’m excited to be able to teach and demonstrate and have, you know, the students be able to see that on a monitor… I’d like to have an open house, once it opens, in the beginning of November to kind of tour in it and see what we have to offer. I’d like like to do some other classes in there too. I’d like to do maybe cooking classes for some of the teachers here at school or utilize it in different ways that I haven’t been able to because I’ve had to go from a traditional classroom to the kitchen, you know? And sometimes that takes up time, you know we’re walking from the given direction in one room, then we’re transporting to another room, and in the end it’s back to the other room. So we lose a lot of cooking time and we lose a lot. We’re always rushed. I think it’ll be nice to be in one room and do everything from there. So, I’m really really excited about that space and the equipment and just the technology and all of that.