WELLMAN

In an environment in which the cost of college education continues to rise and the return on that investment is not a given, and the demand for skilled tradespeople is strong, building trades programs at American high schools are gaining momentum. The Mid-Prairie school board is attuned to this fact and aims to offer their students more opportunities in this regard, and they spent much of their Aug. 26 work session discussing how to go about it.

“I feel like when we look at other schools in the area, our participation in ACE [Architecture, Construction and Engineering] stuff isn’t as big,” board vice president Gabrielle Frederick said. “I would love it if we could do something on the scale of what we’ve done with a couple houses the past few years.”

Board members agreed that they would like to have house-building projects available for students to work on, something like the City of Kalona’s student-built housing projects completed in 2022 and 2023. Students from area schools including Mid-Prairie helped rehab a single-family house and build a new duplex in the summer months of those years.

There are aspects of the Kalona model the school board would like to see adopted: the building projects would involve eight to 12 students at a time, and they would begin by learning basic tool safety. However, there are other aspects they would change: they would like to see building projects in progress during the school year, and students involved in them would earn course credit. They would like to see those projects happen in-district, in Wellman, Kalona, or West Chester.

One of the board’s goals would be to get students interested in the trades. As it stands, the high school offers a handful of industrial technology courses, including those on drafting, welding, and construction material processing. ACE courses are also offered through Kirkwood Community College.

However, the board sees that students lack awareness of their career options, and they want to increase the accessibility of experience in the trades. Trade fairs don’t seem to generate much interest; being able to actually participate in the building of a house would expose students to a variety of skills, tasks, and career options. The board sees value in providing students who don’t particularly thrive in the classroom the opportunity to see the real-life applications of subject knowledge -- geometry, for example.

Mid-Prairie’s school board members have plenty of personal experience to draw on when crafting an expanded building trades program. Board president Jake Snider owns construction and home repair businesses. Jed Seward manages operations at PSI, where he also has been an estimator/project manager. Ryan Schlabaugh spearheaded the student-built housing project in Kalona as the city’s administrator. Superintendent Brian Stone saw Fairfield High School’s Construction Technology program build houses with Habitat for Humanity while serving as the school’s principal.

“Nothing’s impossible,” Stone said at the work session, although there are hurdles the district will have to overcome as they move forward with their ideas. A leader for the building projects would have to be determined, likely not IT teacher Lucas Troyer, who is already stretched thin. Scheduling for students would have to be worked out. Graduation requirements would have to be navigated.

By the end of the session, Stone felt like he had enough information from the board to move forward on what will potentially be “a great opportunity for our kids to take part in HVAC, to plumbing, to you name it.” The board expects to know more and continue discussion at their next work session.

The Mid-Prairie school board will next meet on Monday, Sept. 9 at 6:15 p.m. for a business meeting in the Central Office Community Room.