High school construction trades program is training a new generation of professionals.
Over the years BUILD Des Moines has published several stories about the severe shortage of qualified laborers in the construction trades. Everyone seems to acknowledge the crisis, but few have offered concrete solutions.
Some grass roots efforts in central Iowa are being made to change the situation. One of the best is the construction trades program at Dallas Center-Grimes (DCG) High School.
Now in its seventh year, the DCG construction trades program began when the school’s principal approached tech ed instructor Travis Donahue about developing a curriculum that’s specifically modeled after real-life construction trades. “They’d had a similar program at a previous school district where he worked, and he thought, with the way Grimes is growing, it seemed like a good time to try it here,” Donahue explains.
The district partnered with the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) to develop a curriculum that complemented the college’s building trades program and then began looking for business partners to help implement that curriculum.
The school district partnered with Beisser Lumber and a number of other local subcontractors and suppliers on that first project in 2006–2007, completing a ranch home that sold before the school year was out.
Things have grown significantly since then.
As soon as each school year concludes, Donahue and the other members of the advisory committee, which includes volunteer representatives like Richter and others in the community or in the trades, begin planning the next project.
“We have to find the lot, choose a plan, and get everything ready to begin the next house as soon as school starts in the fall, so it’s a tight schedule all year,” Donohue explains. The school district purchases the lot and materials, and the sale of each home repays that investment, as well as providing funds for additional equipment as it is needed.
This year’s project is one of the partnership’s most ambitious, a ranch home with finished basement in Dallas Center. And Donahue says it turned into a nearly custom home job when it sold just after the first of the year.
This is one of the greatest learning experiences the program offers: teaching the students to adapt to a changing schedule and to learn as they go.
In fact, students in their second year of the program serve as leads for the new students, teaching them the skills the seniors developed the year before.
To participate, students must be in their junior or senior year of high school and must have completed some prerequisite courses. They’re also required to complete an application process and submit references.
Graduates of the DCG program have gone on to study building trades at such schools as DMACC, the University of Northern Iowa, and Iowa State University. And employers such as Beisser, Hubbell Homes, and a number of subcontractors are reaping the benefits as well. Former students take their hands-on experience into the workforce.
Other students who are still undecided about future careers have also benefited from the program.
Jaime Bond, also a senior, enrolled in the program for the first time this year because he didn’t know what he wanted to do after high school. “I wanted to take something that I could maybe jump right into, and this gave me some experience working with my hands.” Though he hated roofing in the snow, Bond says the experience was worth it and the class helped him focus on some specific jobs that interested him.
Many people in the industry may be lamenting the lack of skilled workers and the need to draw more young people into the trades. But partnerships like the one between Dallas Center-Grimes and Beisser Lumber are quietly doing something about it. And they’re doing it very well.
Visit the Dallas Center-Grimes website or contact Travis Donahue.