New facilities at two high schools, plus a renovation project at a third, will give students more training in what Jefferson County Schools calls “building sciences.”

The county’s board of education voted in a special meeting Friday to approve a bid of $1,246,731 to Duncan and Thompson Construction of Hoover, for the construction of two new career-tech buildings — one at Mortimer Jordan High School, and the other at Clay-Chalkville.

Those buildings, coupled with the renovation of facilities at Fultondale High, will become home to classes in welding, carpentry, HVAC and vocational agriculture, among other related fields.

The new buildings will measure 6,000 square feet each. Mortimer Jordan’s building will be situated between the gymnasium and the football practice field.

The old vocational education building at Fultondale is being renovated to house their new program.

Dr. Rafael McDaniel, director of special projects at JefCoEd, said the buildings will be of metal construction — “Butler buildings,” as they are often called — and will be ready for classes in the 2015-16 school year, barring delays from weather or delivery of building parts.

The new facilities will create new classes, and offer some that are currently offered in various other schools on a limited basis — for instance, HVAC and industrial systems training is offered at Pinson Valley, and vocational agriculture at several of the system’s rural schools.

The new programs are part of JefCoEd’s revamping of career-tech programs to train more students for the trades, part of a larger effort nationwide to point students toward high-paying industrial and building jobs that are often going vacant, while many who take a path through college have trouble finding work in their fields of study.