The Warren County Career Center is up for renovations and some new space.

What new programs might fill those new spaces has not been decided.

At the career center’s General Advisory Committee (GAC) last week, committee members did not take any action to recommend new programs. According to Principal Jim Evers, the career center is required to have a GAC by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). The committee makes recommendations about the operation of the center to the school board, which makes all final decisions.

Warren County School District will begin a renovation of the career center building that will require many of the shops to find other homes next year but will result in new and better spaces.

“We’re excited to be moving into our new state-of-the-art facility,” Evers told the committee. “We will gain three undesignated classroom spaces.”

He said it would be best to have an idea what might end up in those spaces before construction is complete. For example, if the committee were to recommend cosmetology, and the school board was to approve that addition, space should have additional plumbing.

He presented information about high priority occupations in the region. Most of those job fields are already covered by programs at the career center.

Committee members asked about the possibility of adding cosmetology to the offerings because there have been students interested in that field.

Evers said one of the potential problems with that would be flooding the job market with the first year of graduates.

On the positive side, students would gain training at the career center that is essentially equivalent to tens of thousands of dollars worth of post-secondary training they would need in the field, he said.

The committee did not want to commit to that kind of a program and, seeing no other pressing program needs, decided to table the matter until its fall meeting.

Along that same line, Evers said he did not anticipate applying for any large grants for the coming year.