Brandywine High School will be receiving a major upgrade to its machine tool shop this summer thanks to a partnership with Lake Michigan College.
Lake Michigan College will pay for the upgrades and enter into a lease agreement with Brandywine for the use of its machine tool shop. Brandywine will replace the equipment in its machine tool shop with newer equipment currently at LMC’s Bertrand Crossing campus.

Brandywine Supt. John Jarpe called the partnership a win-win for both schools and area students. The machine tool class will be a Career Technical Education program, meaning students from outside the Brandywine district can enroll in the program.
Jarpe said many manufacturing companies in the area are having a difficult time finding skilled workers to fill open positions. This partnership should help.
“The demand is out there,” Jarpe said.
“We hope that Brandywine along with LMC through this venture are going to be able to provide some of those skilled workers.”
Lake Michigan College was looking to free up classroom space at its Bertrand Crossing campus. Moving the machine tool shop to Brandywine accomplishes that.
Lake Michigan College would use Brandywine’s machine tool shop in the late afternoon and evening. CTE classes would take place during the day.
Brandywine officials are also talking to people in the private sector about using the facility for training purposes.

The machine tool shop is located on the east end of the high school. The shop would expand into the cur- rent fitness room. The fit- ness room space would be used as classroom space. Jarpe said they are trying to decide where to relocate the fitness room.
Brandywine CTE Director Jim Boger said the new machine tool shop would resemble a college classroom space.

The Brandywine school  board is expected to vote for the agreement in April. Renovations are expected to begin in June with a ten- tative open house date set for August.