New Market Skills Center opened in 1986 as an educational venture between local school districts and is a public school offering technical training for high school students. New Market is a consortium of 10 districts including, Centralia, North Thurston, Oakville, Olympia, Rainier, Rochester, Shelton, Tenino, Tumwater, and Yelm. The vision is to prepare students for the workforce by offering the opportunity to be trained in technical career areas too expensive for a single district to fund. Students are transported to New Market from their home high schools. They spend half their day at the sending school and half at the skills center.