If the Copper Country ISD’s millage passes in August a lot of work will happen with the district’s facilities in Hancock. Last Night CCISD Superintendent James Rautiola visited the Hancock City Council to share a little how a construction millage would support education in the Copper Country.
We’ve never done an infrastructure ask the community for updates. Our building down there I think is 1958. The building up on the corner is 51 or 53. But we’re looking to basically renovate and remodel where we have to and we can. But our other piece of it then is to take the CTE Center from where it sits on Quincy Street and bring everything down to our Hecla Street campus. So all of our staff, all of the students that make sense should be down on that location. – James Rautiola, Superintendent, Copper Country Intermediate School District
Within Hancock, CCISD hopes to move CTE programming to its main campus on Hecla Street. Then move early childcare and education to the current site of CTE programs, on Quincy Street.
We serve as a fiscal agency for early childhood right now, but we don’t actually run any of the classrooms. So we couldn’t solve the whole need. That’s not our intent. We wouldn’t be taking work away from people, but we would be able to serve 80 to 100 more kids. – James Rautiola, Superintendent, Copper Country Intermediate School District
Rautiola also shared with the city council that CCISD recently closed on the site of CTE and additional programs in Baraga County, that will add a physical presence in the region. The millage request will need approval from a voting majority across Baraga, Houghton, and Keweenaw counties.
If we’re successful as a community in August, it’s a four-and-a-half to five-year project. We intend to keep the dollars local. We intend to utilize the local workforce. And we feel like we came up with a good plan as far as doing that so our local contractors can not only bond it, but they have a part of it and we’re not sending the money outside of this area. – James Rautiola, Superintendent, Copper Country Intermediate School District
CCISD official notes due to the Headley Act, the millage rate will average out to 1 mill per year over the 25-year bond. In the first year, the millage will collect 1.15 mills.
Learn more about the 2025 bond proposal here.
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