Districts partner to create national training center

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Widefield and Peyton school districts recently teamed up to form the Peyton/Widefield Vocational Education Campus that will house the National Training Center for manufacturing. 

The training center is an expansion of the Peyton Woods Manufacturing program that began in 2015. Dean Mattson, director of the program, brought his experience in business and education to train high school students in manufacturing and other skills that are required to improve Colorado’s manufacturing workforce.

The 46,600 square-foot building is located at 4450 Foreign Trade Zone across from Widefield School District’s transportation department. Widefield purchased the building in August 2016.

After touring the program last fall, Widefield superintendent Scott Campbell was impressed with the potential for students to succeed after high school. Tim Kistler, superintendent of Peyton School District, opened his doors to allow Widefield to send students to Peyton to take the woods classes. Widefield had nine students drive themselves every day to participate in the program. This year Widefield is busing 50 students to Peyton. Widefield also is providing Chromebooks for each student to allow them to do classwork during the 50-minute drive to and from Peyton.

The training center will house state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, including computer numerical control (CNC) machines. Stiles Machinery, the industry leader for advanced manufacturing solutions, has committed a significant amount of resources towards the program. Widefield and Peyton are also working with other industry companies and manufacturers for additional support on this project.

The national training center is scheduled to open in August 2017.

For more information about the Peyton Woods Manufacturing program contact Dean Mattson, deanmattson@peyton.k12.co.us. For more information on the National Training Center contact Scott Campbell, campbells@wsd3.org or Tim Kistler, kistler@peyton.k12.co.us.

Website for additional information: www.wsd3.org.

Return to Education Highlights home