Hammering out a brighter future

Students at Alta Vista High School gathered around two thick, wooden frames during lunch last week to watch a craftsmanship competition. Foregoing their mid-day meal, students in the school’s construction class tried their hand at a competition to see who could hammer eight nails into the frame the fastest.

It certainly isn’t easy — some of the nails had to be hammered in upside-down — but the students have been busy building, measuring and hammering for months in the school’s construction class. The reasons for taking the construction class varies from student to student, but the course serves as a rare opportunity for students to test the waters with hands-on career training while at school. And these kinds of classes are precisely the kind that are taking on a important role as the state pours money into new job training programs.

Career Technical Education (CTE) programs prepare students for a jobs in broad range of industries, ranging from building and construction trades to engineering and communication technologies. These programs have traditionally served as an alternative to college and postsecondary education, as students could take these technical classes and go straight into the workforce or apply for apprenticeships.

In recent years, California’s state education system has shifted gears and focused more on ensuring that students have “both college and career options upon graduating from high school,” according to a report by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.

At the school level, this shift means offering core curriculum classes in math and science alongside job-training courses. The new approach means students aren’t placed on a specific trajectory, allowing them more time to figure out what they want to do after graduation.

At the state level, the shift means pumping a lot of extra money toward new vocational classes.

Last month, the California Department of Education announced more than $245 million in grants to support new and existing CTE programs across the state, as part of a larger, $900 million investment over the next few years. The money is expected to help cultivate programs where students are able to seamlessly transition into career pathways in higher education, or head straight into employment after high school, according to a department staff report.

The Mountain View-Los Altos High School District was awarded a little more than $533,000 in grant money, according to announcement by the California Department of Education last month. The money will be used primarily to fund improvements at Freestyle Academy, an alternative school program where students spend half the day learning about graphic design, photography, art and digital media.

Associate Superintendent Brigitte Sarraf told the Voice via email that the district is still in the planning stages for how to spend the money, but that it will likely include tech upgrades, room for extra students and potentially hiring a new staff member to teach animation classes.

Construction classes keep students busy

In many ways, Alta Vista High School is already ahead of the curve. The continuation high school, which serves students in Mountain View, Los Altos and Palo Alto, for several years has hosted classes that teach students how to saw, hammer and nail their way through building projects.

Alta Vista is currently home to a comprehensive construction class that teaches masonry, construction, plumbing, electrical and solar installation skills to students, who can take the class fulfill their practical and fine arts requirements or use it as a stepping stone to a new career. Alta Vista Principal Bill Pierce said it started strictly as a masonry course, and morphed over the years. Students have built anything from storage sheds and chicken coops to planter boxes, dog houses and furniture.

Pierce said the construction class, which is taught out of a shed in a service yard abutting the school, includes more than a dozen work stations equipped with DVD players. This gives students a chance to work on a skill set — like plumbing a sink with PVC pipes — alongside a tutorial video.

“Students are able to watch the videos and do the hands-on plumbing work at the same time,” Pierce said.

The classroom itself is filled with student projects that have been running for months. Raymond Schneider, a senior in the class, has been working on a model house since September, complete with wooden studs, coats of paint, and shingles applied with roofing tar. Schneider said it’s been a fun experience for him — and he’s gotten really good at the nailing challenge — but it’s not likely to lead to a new career.

“It’s just an elective to try something different,” Schneider said.

Daniel Reil, also a senior, has been working on stepping stones made of cement for a walkway. Each stone has its own creative design, and some of them include reflective, glass-like materials on the surface that light up in a pattern. Not every walkway stone has been a success — some of the designs were too cluttered and crumbled — but Reil said the construction class could be a step towards a future career.

“The class is really great, it’s probably my favorite class at Alta Vista,” he said. “I’m really considering taking more construction classes.”

Similar to the state-wide goals for CTE expansion, the construction class at Alta Vista is about keeping options open and aiding students who want to learn a trade. Tomas Ibarra, the school’s construction teacher, said his goal is to teach students as much as he can about construction, including high-demand skills like installing solar panels and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

“The goal is to teach them the foundation in case they want to go to a trade school,” he said.

Ibarra is a former construction worker who joined the school three years ago, and said he’s gotten a lot of support for efforts to improve the construction class. When he joined the school, the class was taught outside under a tarp, and recently upgraded to a new shed furnished with wooden shelves built by past students. Ibarra called the shed a big upgrade. It’s certainly better than his original request, which was for a new tarp.

Recognizing the importance of trade skills

The construction class at Alta Vista could be seen as a microcosm of what the state plans to do with its $900 million investment into CTE classes. The funding is expected to play an important role in making sure school districts continue to offer trade-skill classes in an environment where college preparation remains the primary focus.

Peter Tira, a spokesman for the California Department of Education, said the matching grant program will encourage school districts to support CTE programs and prevent them from “falling through the cracks” as the state-wide funding formula for school districts continues to morph. Many of these more technical, jobs training programs were also the first to get cut following the 2008 recession, Tira said, and the grant money acts as an incentive to bring those classes back.

“These classes tended to get hit pretty hard in the recession, so we’re storing some of that funding and making sure it remains a priority,” he said.

Tira stressed that these jobs-training programs are not intended to steer students away from college prospects, calling it an “outdated” view on how CTE classes work. The programs tend to be high-caliber and designed to better position students to get postsecondary education that can help kickstart a career, even if they do decide not to go to a four-year university.

“This is not like the auto shop or (wood-working) classes of 1965,” Tira said. “It’s really high quality, rigorous academic courses.”