For more than 66 years, the Central Aroostook Association has operated its Opportunity Training Center — a private K-12 special purpose school — out of a 10,000-square-foot building in Presque Isle.
The space was “pretty cramped,” as one educator put it.
But as the school year began Wednesday, the roughly 28 students in its middle-high school program stepped through the doors of a new facility the association bought, then massively renovated this summer to expand its services.
“We’re excited to be able to provide the students a lot more space,” OTC Assistant Director Meg Plante said. “It’ll be a lot more engaging for them and I’m sure it will be much more successful for them as well.”
The 4,200-square-foot building, dubbed “OTC Next Steps,” was the former site of Kelly’s Place Learning Center on Houlton Road in Presque Isle, which closed in March, citing delayed state subsidy payments.
“When this opportunity came up, it was unfortunate because a daycare that was serving a lot of Aroostook County closed,” OTC Director Paula Perkins said. “But the space just ended up being perfect for a new location and expansion.”
It significantly expands the organization’s campus. OTC will continue to operate its elementary school out of a location on Lombard Street.
The school serves students with moderate to severe disabilities from anywhere in Aroostook County up to the age of 22 with individualized education and on-site therapy five days a week. It has 56 total students enrolled this year, about half of which will attend the middle-high school, and a sizable wait list, which has noticeably increased in recent years, Perkins said. The new building changes that.
“This allows for us to not have a wait list any longer,” Perkins said. “We have the space that we can grow now, where we don’t have to hold back.”
The facility sits on a 12.2-acre property, giving the school ample space to expand further in the future. The vast piece of real estate is also a major plus for its outdoor programming.
With the consent of its board of directors, the Central Aroostook Association purchased the property early in May. Once the school year ended on June 16, renovations began in full force.
The association contracted with close to 10 local companies to remake the building in their image, redesigning the layout, replacing the lighting system, updating the boiler and sewer systems, and repaving the parking lot, among other work.
“Sometimes you set up for a contractor to come and you’ve got to wait like two months to get on the docket for them to do anything,” Perkins said. “But we signed the papers and that very next Monday [a contractor] was in here and he was working on tearing things apart and getting the painters in and everything.”
That’s on top of the work the association’s four-person maintenance crew put in, an effort Perkins called “double time,” as they worked on the new property in addition to the rest of the group’s campus, which includes residential homes, Section 28 and case management services and shared-living facilities.
“They did a phenomenal job,” Perkins said. “I’m sending [facilities manager Steve Spooner] texts at 10 o’clock at night going, ‘Hey, did we remember to do this?’ I get an answer back that ‘Yep, we’ll take care of it.’”
Less than 2 ½ months after renovations began, they were complete, in time for the school year to begin with no interruptions. The association opened the building for an open house and ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday, the first opportunity for some students to see their new classrooms.
“I think some of them are nervous, because it is a big change, but excited at the same time,” middle school teaching lead Macey Campbell said. “I think it’ll be very beneficial for them being separated, the elementary and the middle-high school.”
Campbell, who is entering her third year with the OTC, came up with the name for the building. She says it’s a nod to both the progression of students into higher grade levels and the growth of the school overall, as it begins a new chapter under a new roof.
“This is our next step,” Campbell said. “We can’t wait to see where we go from here.”