Inside Sioux Falls School District's New CTE Ag Barn Expansion
Morgan Matzen, Sioux Falls Argus Leader
The mews and purrs of kittens, chattering of mice and guinea pigs, and clucking of hens are all part of the ambience at the Sioux Falls School District’s new expansion at the Career and Technical Education Academy. And in the semesters to come, the mooing of cows, neighing of horses, and bleating of goats may join in the symphony.
The district has finished construction on the CTE Academy’s new agricultural barn and classroom spaces dedicated to:
- Agricultural Leadership
- Large Animal Science
- Plant Science and Horticulture
- Small Animal Science
All these programs require students to maintain an FFA (Future Farmers of America) agriscience fair project.
Students like Izzy Huffman are working towards national FFA competitions this year. Outside of school and FFA work, she also raises chickens at home and sells their eggs on Facebook or at her mom’s school.
“It doesn’t feel like school when you’re here,” shares Jillian DeHaven, a student in the FFA program.
What’s inside the new CTE agriculture expansion?
This barn, two years in the making, was made possible by $1 million in grant funding from the South Dakota Department of Education in 2024 for a “cutting-edge urban agriculture center.”
CTE Academy Principal Josh Hall calls the addition “long-awaited.” He notes that students from all four Sioux Falls public high schools and 11 neighboring high schools take courses at the campus, including the ag-related ones.
The space includes:
- A greenhouse growing tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers via hydroponics.
- A head house next to the greenhouse with basil and bunching onions sprouting in germination chambers.
- A hallway showcasing multiple FFA trophies and photos of past school year sows.
- A laundry room with storage for students’ boots, coveralls, lab coats, and FFA jackets.
- Agricultural and horticultural classrooms
- A veterinary classroom complete with kittens from the Sioux Falls Area Humane Society, adoptable at the end of the school year.
- A chicken coop with hens, some from the Sioux Empire Fair’s petting zoo, and a guinea pig pen.
- Lab tables for hands-on learning about small animals’ skeletal systems through dissections.
- Four large stalls ready for cows or goats, space for a horse stable, and a mezzanine hay loft.
Some produce from the greenhouse and eggs from the hens are used in the CTE Academy’s culinary courses.
This spring, students will also get experience planting crops on plots near the school. Tractors and a Ditch Witch are available for learning about crop management, precision agriculture, landscaping, and turf management thanks to partnerships with Weller Brothers Landscape Professionals and Landscape Garden Centers.
Funding for the ag expansion came from:
- Continual Carl Perkins federal grant funding
- District capital outlay funds
- $225,000 from the South Dakota Department of Education’s Workforce Development Grant for a veterinary clinic setting.