Classroom Modernization in a CTE Setting Requires Constant Communication

Learning facilities centered on career and technical education can encompass an assortment of tech resources, from welding tools to laptops and audiovisual equipment. 

When you’re constructing a building from scratch, you can customize its structural elements to accommodate CTE equipment needs. But in existing spaces, you don’t have that luxury; you have to find ways to align CTE components with the current infrastructure capabilities.

CDW started working with Alabama’s Huntsville City Schools on its CTE facility — the 81,000-square-foot Huntsville Center for Technology — during the initial stages of production. The district began offering CTE instruction at the HCT in August 2025.

The building was just a shell when we toured it with the construction project manager to discuss what everyone was trying to accomplish. Before the work was even halfway done, we had exact dimensions from blueprints the construction team shared with us, which helped us figure out what interactive panel size — and how many panels and speakers — we could include in each room.

Beyond our face-to-face meetings, we had numerous phone calls with the project manager, walking through all the documents and discussing recent changes, such as rooms being repurposed.

Frequent communication helped us maneuver the wiring around aspects of the building. We would just tell the construction team we were going to run a wire through the wall in a large meeting room and needed conduit because we wanted to hide the video or Ethernet cables under the table, and they would put it there.

Because the HCT was new construction, alterations were easy to do. In one of the meeting rooms, for example, a plug had been installed in a way that would have forced us to mount the panel too high for anyone to reach it, but we were able to get it lowered.

It’s important to receive products in time to install them before the HCT’s opening date; given the scope of the facility, ordering items required detailed coordination.

The HCT was brand new — it had no doors yet — so we couldn’t ship products there because it was unsecured. Displays and cables were sent to the central office, located on the same campus. The school handled moving items from the warehouse to the new building, and then we installed them.

Ultimately, the HCT project was successful because the school, construction team and CDW shared information early in the process. This gave everyone time to brainstorm, gather and test ideas, institute changes and make sure we were all on the same page.

In addition to the best-practice experience CDW brings to projects from working on tech implementations around the world, we can help school districts streamline the acquisition process by serving as a single source of contact for CTE design software, 3D printers and other gear, such as network components that allow students to access the devices.

Districts don’t have to spend valuable time trying to compare and obtain items from multiple vendors. CDW learning technology specialists will confer with you and your partners to identify effective, comprehensive solutions, and find the best products to fit your specific needs.