School and trades help each other out

Finding and getting started on a great career right out of high school is rarely an easy task. Yet helping to make that happen is what Cloquet High School, through its building trades program, has set out to do with its students ... with a lot of help from some local trade unions.

Vocational teachers Dusty Rhoades and Bret Gunderson led the way in transforming an already well-developed industrial arts program into a comprehensive building trades curriculum. While their diverse course offerings have laid a foundation of key skills, the combined efforts of school, trade union, and industry are providing students with a direct path to employment in highly skilled construction trades.

"We partnered up with the Carpenters (Local 361) and Millwrights (Local 1348) unions, got their curriculum, and incorporated that into our program here," Rhoades said. "It's a three-year deal. We have Construction 1, 2, and 3, and kids can take whatever level they want as many times as they need to."

He said this school year was the first for the revamped building trades program.

"The partnership [with the unions] is what made it really work for us," Rhoades said. "If we have a question or a problem with something that I don't know how to do, I can say, 'Please send somebody over,' and they will send an apprentice and a representative."

Gunderson added that the millwright program fits in very well with the high school's welding and machining courses.

Translating this curriculum into a career path for Cloquet students is where industry sponsorship has played a critical role.

Rhoades introduced high school seniors Harlan Foster, Declan Goward and Drake Nordin as early success stories.

"These are the three young men that signed on with the trade union and are sponsored by three different contractors," he said.

All three have jobs waiting for them with their sponsoring businesses when they graduate from high school this spring: Foster with Northland Constructors, Goward with Riihiluoma Construction, and Nordin with McGough Construction.

"We were hoping for one sponsor this year, and we got three. Next year we hope to get quite a few more," Rhoades explained.

"It's a pretty good program," he said, "and the boys are pretty lucky to get into this one. Prior to the curriculum and agreement with the trade union they would have had to go out and knock on doors and get hired before they would get into the union.

"By going through the program here, the union helped set us up and find sponsors for these young men. So, we've got three sponsors right off the bat that said they'll hire these kids coming right out of high school."

Because of their union memberships, Foster, Goward and Nordin will each participate in a four-year on-the-job apprenticeship that will train them to be journeymen (licensed professionals) in their trades.

Setting the table for that kind of career opportunity is what Rhoades and Gunderson wanted the program to be all about.

Rhoades gave an overview of the carpentry curriculum: in Construction 1, they do the most basic projects: magazine racks, bread boards, bookshelves, etc.

"Construction 1 is meant to introduce kids to the tooling," he said.

In Construction 2, students get into shed construction and playhouses. In Construction 3, they go into roof systems, wall systems and more.

Of the millwright courses, Gunderson said, "They do a lot of welding and cutting, a bit of machining, some precision measuring, placement of large equipment and parts, and a lot of tooling - just familiarizing themselves with the hand and power tools."

These courses are supplemented by a construction and trades math class through the math department.

"The kids find out that it's still algebra, still geometry," Rhoades said.

"But more meaningful," Gunderson added.

The math teacher "puts it into terms that apply to what we do here," Rhoades said.

Rhoades also integrates a "One Trade, Many Careers" course in soft skills into all his classes.

"It's [teaching] the expectation of getting up, and getting to work on time," he explained. "Employers are looking for hard-working kids, not kids on their phones. It's how to introduce yourself, how to shake hands, write a resume. Employers in the field are saying that if they have a kid that is willing to work and shows up, but has no skills, they can teach them a skill. But it's the soft skills that they can't teach."

How have Cloquet's high school seniors, faced with making their way in the world of employment, responded to all these course offerings and career opportunities in the trades?

Goward, just weeks away from graduation, said he was interested in the shop classes from the beginning.

"Freshman year going in and taking wood shop classes," Goward said, "[I] got into it, started making some contacts in the union and worked my way up. Now I'm in one of the last classes for wood shop, the most advanced class, and I got in with the union.

"Working with buildings kind of made me think, and I decided that I want to be a carpenter. Going forward, I plan on journeying out as a carpenter," he added.

Foster, whose career interests are in "highway heavy" (building highways and bridges), reflected on how he came to see himself in the construction trades.

"I took pretty much all the shop classes: auto shop, intro to welding and machining, and I really enjoyed that. This fueled me to go into the millwright program and take advanced welding and machining," he said.

"I'll be doing a decent amount of welding on my job, since it's highway work," he said. "I'm looking forward to that, because I do enjoy welding."

Nordin shared his story.

"I started out in auto shop doing small engines and a lot of auto work," he said. "Then the welding and machining and millwright class really made me think about what I wanted to do after high school a lot more. The more I learned about being a carpenter, I decided that's what I wanted to do, and to try and make a career out of it."

All three young men spoke of how much they have enjoyed learning many of the skills they have gained, and of their hopes for the future as their careers in the trades develop.

Rhoades and Gunderson are looking forward to next year, and a building competition they have registered for.

"I signed the construction classes up for a competition down in the Cities," Rhoades said. "We're going to be building playhouses for Habitat for Humanity. I see Wrenshall is on the list now, too, so there will be some local competition. It should be fun."

He explained that the playhouse will be 4 feet by 8 feet, and the students will get extra points for incorporating recycled building materials, such as windows and doors from Habitat for Humanity's ReStore.

"There will be a kids' winner, voted on by kids, and some professional judging from vendors as well," Gunderson explained. "Then they will auction the playhouses off, and the profits will go to Habitat for Humanity."

Rhoades summarized student interest in the building trades program by pointing out the numbers of students enrolled. They have close to 50 kids in both Construction 1 and 2 this semester alone, with about 75 or so last semester.

"We put a lot of kids through this curriculum," he said.

Students graduating from Cloquet High School's building trades program estimated their starting pay as apprentices will range from $20 to $24 per hour, with an additional $18 to $21 per hour in benefits.

They will have no student loan debt.