Humboldt High School hasn’t had a building trades program “since before my time,” Nathan Ellison said. He graduated from Humboldt in 2001, then from Pittsburgh State University’s Technology Education program in May 2006.
But now, Ellison said, “There’s a big push throughout the state to get kids career-oriented before they leave high school.” And Humboldt is riding that wave.
Ellison is the instructor for Humboldt’s new building trades program. Its inception is something of a god-send for him.
“I taught building trades at Iola for the last two years,” Ellison said. “I was already living here in Humboldt and the opportunity came up to start this program from scratch.”
“It’s pretty fun,” said sophomore Desiree Churning, 17, one of Ellison’s students.
Like some others in the program, Desiree had some previous construction experience. “I helped my dad build five garages. Plus we build sheds,” she said.
While she enjoys construction, she hopes to work in a different aspect of the housing industry. “I really like interior design,” she said. “I’d love to do that.”
Ellison said his group of students is “split about 50/50 of those college-bound and those interested in this as a career.”
The skills the students learn are useful even to those who don’t plan to continue on in the construction field, Ellison said.
“They can save a load of money later on by doing some work themselves,” when repairing their own homes, he said.
Ellison believes such programs can help small, rural communities stay viable, especially when it comes to youth retention.
Ideally, if the students learn enough to give them marketable skills, they may stay in the area and become full time residents after graduation. It’s a goal Ellison would love to meet, even if its not necessarily an objective of the program.
“This is a great area,” he said.
Michael Doolittle, a junior, will be 17 in April. He, too, has some construction experience, but “This is the first time I’m building a house from the ground up,” he said. “I’ve done sheetrocking before, and remodeling,” he said. “I would like to take this up as a career.”
“And it also gets you out of school. That’s two hours you don’t have to put up with teachers,” he said.
Michael has also worked with his father. “My dad remodeled the Farm Bureau — me and him did that.”
Michael is one of a handful of students who live in Iola but drive to Humboldt for school.
“I’m willing to waste some gas to come here — it’s the best school ever. I love the people here, this is fun, I enjoy this,” he said. Still, he said, it’s not a slacker class. “You’ve got to apply yourself.”
Ellison teaches two groups a day. The morning session is from 8 to 10:30 a.m. , and the afternoon from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Older students tend to be in the morning session, Ellison said, because seniors can block their schedule to allow for a three hour class. Next year, Ellison expects some of this year’s juniors to be in the morning session.
“The morning group pours more concrete because we have more time,” Ellison said. “The afternoon group does a little more roofing because of the frost” dissipating with the sun, he said.
“We did everything here,” Doolittle piped in.
“They all think they do more than the other class,” Ellison laughed.
Still, the class has done a lot. They’ve built molds for and finished the concrete of the driveway and garage. They hung particle board and filled walls with fiberglass insulation. They will sheetrock and paint and install cabinets and counters.
“A kid can leave here with a lot of general knowledge,” Ellison said. “These guys do math down here every day and don’t even realize it.”
THE HUMBOLDT class is building a 1,400 square foot, three-bedroom, two-bath home that is “all electric,” Ellison said. “We’re trying to offset the gas costs a a little bit. The electric systems are supposed to be more energy efficient.”
At this point, though, no green technology has been included in the home, “mainly for a cost reason — it’s to try to make the home as affordable as possible. The buyer will be able to get a new home for just under $100,000, which is hard to find in new construction,” he said.
In addition, Ellison said, “this house is on three lots,” making it about 100 feet from the nearest neighbor. It’s a quiet street, he said, great for a family as children could play without worry of passing cars.
“It’s a great neighborhood,” Ellison said. “It’s two blocks from the school.”
That proximity lends itself to a more efficient trades program, too, Ellison pointed out.
“It’s really nice,” he said. “When we forget a tool I can just send a kid back to get it. I don’t have to load everyone on the bus and take fifteen minutes out of the program to do that.”
It’s a way for the students to learn personal responsibility as well, Ellison said. “They know they have ten minutes to get there and get back.”
Joe and Janey Works donated the land to the high school, Ellison said.
“Joe owns B & W Truck Beds in Humboldt. They had this land and they were looking for a use for it.”
“It was a nice way to get the program off the ground.”
The location is so ideal, in fact, that the school board purchased the vacant lot across the street for next year’s house.
Interest in purchasing the house is growing. At least four parties have seriously incquired of the school board, Ellison said.
“If the time line is right, we’ll have our first open house after spring break, at the end of March.” Ellison said. The school board hopes to attract a solid buyer at that time, allowing the purchaser to choose paint and carpet colors before those phases of construction are underway.
“We have a midrange carpet budgeted for, and we’ll keep it very neutral” otherwise, Ellison said.
An early buyer would also have a chance to select their own cabinets, Elllison said, keeping their choice within the school’s budget, of course.
“If they want something outside of what we have budgeted for, they can pay for it and the kids will still install it,” Ellison said.
Student labor is, primarily, why the house can be sold below market value.
When contractors are on site, “they show the kids what they do. We’ve had an electrician on site, but the kids do a lot of the physical work — hanging the wires and (electrical) boxes — but he puts the service panel in and does testing on it,” Ellison said.
“The physical part of the electrical is where we can rack up a lot of bills, but running wire is fun for kids.”
THE CLASS is currently an elective, but Ellison hopes to develop internships or a job credit system for students as years go by.
“There’s a construction engineering program through Pitt State,” he said. Ideally, a program like Humboldt’s will meet some pre-requisites for such programs.
“We’ve had some interest from some larger companies who are interested in it from a (future employee) recruiting standpoint,” he said.
Some of the companies “want to host a career day to show the kids what the larger companies do, and what else is out there” in the world of construction trades, he said.
“Hopefully, they’ll learn something here even if they don’t pursue this as a career.”
No comments:
Post a Comment