Going Beyond Shop Class

These three programs could serve as nationwide models for high schools.

• At Cherry Creek Campus in Colorado, students build a tiny home then are set up with paid internships. The program has a waiting list.
• Pike Central High School in Indiana is tweaking its trades classes to include offsite construction.
• Boulder Valley School District, also in Colorado, is building its own modular factory where students will get hands-on experience of building homes.

Providing offsite construction exposure and hands-on experience for young students will give them the necessary skills to build careers in our industry. But what type of offsite education is happening around the country at the high school level?

Here are three examples that we think can be replicated and learned from.

A Pipeline to the Industry

The Cherry Creek Innovation Campus (CCIC) in Greenwood Village, Colorado is a move to introduce innovative spaces that support career development back into the local school. Funded by voter-approved bonds and federal Carl Perkins Grants, the campus serves eight traditional high schools.

Mike Degitis, Project Coordinator and Math Instructional Coach at CCIC, has helped build the program from the ground up. Students can apply every February for the following school year and, while some Career Technical Education (CTE) programs require a history of good attendance and grades, these are not barriers to acceptance at CCIC.

“When we first started the program, we would give seniors priority so they could at least experience the classes,” says Degitis. “We now target sophomores so they can get three full years of trade experience. The onus is on the students to work with their schools and make sure their schedule works for them to attend CCIC.”

During year one of the construction program, students learn the tools and materials and are exposed to many types of trades.

Year two, students run an entire tiny home design-build project from start to finish. The completed homes are sent to downtown Denver, Colo. to house the homeless. Students who participate in year three serve as an apprentice or intern. A district coordinator helps arrange classes to allow them to continue to earn high school credits, while also getting paid and gaining work experience.

The school district also has a program called Options where homeschooled students go to their satellite campus once a week and then attend CCIC on the remaining days. Degitis says there are about 36 homeschooled students currently participating and they’re some of his best students. One female student was hired by a local building engineer center her senior year and offered a contract of $65K to go full time after high school. She now runs her own business and has no student debt.

Providing homeschooled students with exposure to offsite construction is a huge area of opportunity. Research published by the Urban Institute reported a 30% surge in homeschooling between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years (this stat does not include the 19 states that don’t require reporting). Washington D.C. alone has seen a 108% increase in homeschooling since 2017.

CCIC currently has 150 students seated in the construction program with another 50 on a waitlist. They are not the only program with this challenge. If their expansion is approved, CCIC would like to offer HVAC and welding programming to diversify the construction enrollment and create more career pathways. With the support they have received from the community, including parents who are now on board after witnessing the fruit of the program, they have a good chance at succeeding.

Growing an Existing Program

At Pike Central High School in Petersburg, Indiana, Jeremy Howald teaches a Construction Trades CTE class where students are learning about offsite construction.

“When I first started teaching them about modular and offsite the students thought it was HUD homes,” says Mr. Howald. “They were fascinated by the commercial sets they saw in videos.”

Last year he set up his classroom in a U-shaped factory layout and students helped build wall jigs. This year, his second- and third-year students will build a structure for the school using prefab methods. And although there are no offsite factories nearby to offer students work experience, Mr. Howald plans to take them on a field trip so they can watch building components being manufactured. His class is a great example of small tweaks to existing programs that allow students to have meaningful exposure to offsite construction.

An In-School Factory

Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) and the City of Boulder, Colorado have partnered to build a 30,000 sq. ft. modular factory where students will learn new construction technology while building homes. The factory, funded mostly by grants and federal loans, will be built on property owned by and located next to the high school.

The idea to build a factory was that of Kurt Firnhaber, Director of Housing and Human Services for the City of Boulder, and a former teacher in the district’s CTE program. But it was up to Jay Sugnet, Housing Senior Manager of the City of Boulder, to figure out how it could be done. With a background in land development and code writing, but no modular experience, Sugnet began looking for someone who could help.

After speaking with Jason Carter, CEO of The Mod Squad, Sugnet was confident they could build the factory. Carter’s team has been involved with more factory builds than any other company in the country.

“We heard about their mission to show high school kids new construction techniques,” says Carter. “We came in and designed the building, designed the flow, and worked with the architects and GCs. I’m committed to getting programs like this into high schools. Whatever we can do to contribute to those types of missions, we like to do it.”

Students from BVSD will continue working with Flatirons Habitat for Humanity in Lafayette, Colo. to build replacement homes in the factory for the Ponderosa Mobile Home Park — a piece of property located in Boulder and acquired by the city in 2015 with a commitment to replacing the failing mobile homes with more energy-efficient, IRC modular homes. The new homes will be just under 1200 sq. ft. and the project will take about four to five years to complete.

“We’re taking the Habitat model and just moving it indoors,” says Sugnet. “Instead of students being out in 100-degree temperatures they’re in a climate-controlled factory. People are really excited about modular, even if they don’t understand what it really is. It’s new and exciting.”

The factory will not only give students valuable hands-on experience, but it will also provide offsite construction exposure to sponsors, homeowners and community members.

Sugnet believes the initial capacity for factory output will be around 50 units per year because they will be relying on volunteer labor. In the future they will build triplex and fourplex buildings for the surrounding community. Students should be in the factory from January 2025.

Heather Wallace is the Communications Director at Momentum Innovation Group, a consulting firm that is working with the modular industry and educational institutions to develop a curriculum that will help drive more students to the offsite industry.