Auburn Career Center is preparing to celebrate more than $9 million in campus improvements completed over the past two years, with a ribbon-cutting and employer and community partner open house set for 11:30 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. on October 16 at the Concord Township campus. The upgrades include a new innovation center, a sports medicine lab, expanded cosmetology labs, and a new healthcare wing, all aimed at expanding career training to meet the needs of Northeast Ohio employers.
According to Cleveland.com, the October 16 event at 8140 Auburn Road will include tours of the renovated spaces, student demonstrations, and opportunities to meet Auburn's business, education, and community partners. The innovation center is intended to serve as a regional hub for workforce training, employer engagement, conferences, and collaboration. In a news release, Superintendent Joe Glavan said, “Auburn is investing in more than buildings — we are investing in our students, our employers and the future workforce of northeast Ohio.”
Glavan was appointed superintendent in May 2025 and began serving on August 1, 2025, succeeding Dr. Brian Bontempo, who retired in July 2025 after leading the vocational district, according to the Geauga County Maple Leaf. Glavan is superintendent as Auburn celebrates the completed campus improvements.
New Tenants Move Into Renovated Space
One of the most visible uses of the newly renovated Workforce and Innovation Center is Lake Erie College at Auburn, a College Credit Plus partnership announced in February that converted a former auditorium into three dedicated higher-education classrooms. The arrangement, launching for the 2026-2027 school year, lets high school students earn dual high school and college credit directly on Auburn's campus, per the same source's report.citing Lake Erie College's announcement.
The renovated campus is also drawing a familiar tenant back. In March, the governing board of iSTEM Geauga Early College High School approved relocating the school to Auburn's Concord Township campus for the 2026-2027 school year, signing a lease for roughly 13,387 square feet in Auburn's south building along with three classrooms in the main building, the Maple Leaf reported. iSTEM originally launched on Auburn's campus in 2015 before temporarily operating in Painesville.
Enrollment Surge Behind the Expansion
Modernized recruitment outreach has helped drive student enrollment at Auburn.
Auburn's renovated facilities are intended to expand career training in Northeast Ohio.
State Recognition
The expansion arrives alongside strong state marks. In September, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce awarded Auburn an overall 5 out of 5 stars on its state report card for the fourth consecutive year, citing a 98% graduation rate and a 99% student credential attainment rate.
The campus renovation builds on earlier technical investments. In October 2023, Auburn expanded its Advanced Manufacturing Lab by installing a 5-axis CNC mill funded through an Economic Development Administration Good Jobs Challenge grant, in partnership with the Alliance for Working Together Foundation, according to ThinkMFG. More recently, the Ohio General Assembly included $200,000 in state capital budget allocations for the Auburn Career Center Workforce Center under line item CP0683 in its June capital budget, per BillTrack50.
Community Reach Beyond the Classroom
Auburn's campus upgrades have also supported outreach beyond secondary technical education. Since launching in October 2024, the center's community food market initiative, run in partnership with the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, has distributed over 130,000 pounds of fresh food to more than 6,500 local residents, with the market operating monthly out of campus facilities in Concord Township, according to Auburn Career Center.
The district's current momentum follows a difficult chapter in its labor history. In February 2024, WKYC reported that the Auburn Vocational School District Board of Education was ordered by a court to pay $1.48 million in back pay to teachers in a judgment over planning period stipends dating back to 2011, while the dispute over distributing the money continued.
