The first rung

Academy puts students on a career ladder

By Jennifer Pfaff

Alex Kieliszewski used to wake in the morning hoping for a fever or stomachache.

Any ailment that would get him out of school would do.

“Now when I get sick, it’s like, ‘Oh man, I’m going to miss something great today,’” the 17-year-old said.

His opinion of school changed when he joined the Construction Career Academy at Burlington High School last year. The program, which enters its second year this fall, introduces teens to the building industry through a curriculum weaving hands-on technical and construction-related learning with English and math courses.

“In regular school, in my opinion, you’re just going there and being taught stuff you won’t, most of the time, use as an adult,” Kieliszewski said. “Now, in a similar class in the academy, I can see, ‘Oh, this is why I should know this.’”

Reading comprehension is necessary for understanding contracts and project specifications. Public speaking skills are essential when making presentations to potential clients or government regulators. Money is wasted if the volume of a concrete job is figured incorrectly.

These links between academics and a potential career brought the classroom alive for Kieliszewski, who watched his grades rise from Cs and Bs his freshman year to mostly As his sophomore year — his first in the Career Academy.

The Construction Career Academy class makes a presentation to a Gateway Technical College committee to secure building space for a new class lab. Photo courtesy of the AGC of Wisconsin

The inaugural class shares his success, said Barb Kopack-Hill, Burlington High School principal. The 24 students enrolled in the academy last year entered with an average 2.24 grade-point average. At year’s end, that cumulative GPA rose to 2.7.

“The engagement in school is dramatically different,” Kopack-Hill said. “It’s clear why we had an increase in GPA: They wanted to be here.”

The proof is in the numbers. In the year prior to the academy’s launch, the future academy participants accumulated 229 tardies.

Once in the construction program, their tardies dropped to 101, and suspensions fell from 27 to three.

“Students see themselves as capable, and it has increased their confidence,” Kopack-Hill said. “They are doing rigorous work, real work.”

Real work is at the heart of the Construction Career Academy. It exposes teen-agers to the real-life facets of the building and remodeling industries.

And that was the goal of the Associated General Contractors of Wisconsin, which is the originator and main supporter of the academy. The AGC foresees a work-force crisis in coming years and hopes that programs like that at Burlington High School will attract young, skilled people to all aspects of the building trades, said Robert Barker, AGC of Wisconsin’s executive vice president.

Workers take down steel studs and remove data cables in what will be a new learning lab for the Construction Career Academy in the Burlington Area School District. Photo courtesy of Scherrer Construction Co. Inc.

Soon, “there will be more people leaving the industry than joining it,” he said.

Most working craftsmen in the United States are 40 or older, said Peter Scherrer, president and chief executive officer of Burlington-based Scherrer Construction Co. Inc. and past president of AGC of Wisconsin. Since the construction industry’s work load is growing, a shrinking work force means there will be more work than there are people capable of doing it.

“We felt the Career Academy was the best route for us to take as far as addressing our future work force,” Barker said.

So the AGC approached the Burlington Area School District, a convenient location for Scherrer and a district known for seeking new ways to reach students. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and the Career Academy was put into practice in the 2005-06 school year.

Eventually, it will serve sophomores through seniors with a three-year curriculum. In its first year, the program was opened to sophomores. The remaining grade levels will be added year by year.

Academy participants attend Burlington High School with the rest of their peers and complete the same curriculum requirements as any other student. They experience hands-on technical training in masonry, electrical work, plumbing and carpentry, and they benefit from field trips and guest appearances from local construction professionals.

“What’s so different here is the integration of the math and English,” Scherrer said. “When the kid is learning to calculate volume, it’s done in the context of ordering concrete.

Construction Career Academy students team up to solve a math problem in geometry class. Photo courtesy of the AGC of Wisconsin

“When they get to the lab, they know what a rafter is because they covered the terminology in English.”

It’s all accomplished while meeting state standards for those subjects, Kopack-Hill said. If scheduling issues create a need, a non-academy student can take part in the construction-center English class and still learn the language skills for future educational and career paths.

For Kieliszewski, the emphasis on construction outside the lab changed his attitude toward school.

“My least favorite class used to be English,” he said. “I don’t like to read old … books, Mark Twain and stuff.

“Once I started the academy, my English teacher … made English one of my favorite subjects. It’s construction-related. We learned to write a resume; we’re learning the lingo.”

One of the AGC’s goals, Scherrer said, is to show students that the benefits of construction know-how aren’t confined to those wielding power tools.

“It’s not just technical,” he said. “We need accountants who know they can come to construction firms. Marketing doesn’t have to mean selling shoes.”

A variety of careers are involved in the building trades, and those with knowledge of the language, practices and needs of construction firms can make a good fit. With that in mind, the academy was designed to prepare students for their next stop after high school, whether it’s the work force, military, vocational college or a four-year university.

Tailoring the curriculum to construction was a team effort involving School District staff, local contractors and other professionals, Kopack-Hill said. As the district presented the materials for each grade level, the construction experts chimed in, explaining how they use those skills or concepts every day.

Construction Career Academy students build a sense of team by trying to fit everyone in the group on a single piece of green plastic. Photo courtesy of the AGC of Wisconsin

Ultimately, the academy will pay off even for students who don’t pursue a career in the field. As Scherrer points out, knowing how to fix a leaky toilet is a valuable life skill for anyone.

Kieliszewski is already enjoying the high demand for skilled workers. He spent part of his summer vacation working with his dad fixing up the family’s basement. He also helped his grandmother repair her roof.

“I’ve been helping out family members left and right,” he said. It’s all good experience for a teen-ager who hopes to enter the building trades one day, possibly as an electrical engineer.

As evidenced by Kieliszewski’s experience, the academy is growing by leaps and bounds.

When students return to school this fall, those in the academy will set up in a new learning lab — a portion of a building owned by the district but leased by Gateway Technical College.

The academy’s students, charged with learning public speaking, made a presentation to Gateway’s board of directors to request the lab. It was another way to bring home the real-world applications of classroom activities.

“In English, instead of making a demonstration speech in how to make a meal, they prepared a presentation for the Gateway board to convince them of the expansion of the Career Academy,” Kopack- Hill said. “It’s what other students do, but on different topics.”

The new lab, set for completion before the second semester, will be partially built by academy students, said Jeremiah Hackbarth, assistant project manager and an intern at Scherrer Construction. When it is done, the students will have greater opportunities for practicing their skills.

“Last year, we had to build little 4-by-4 walls,” Kieliszewski said. “With the new building, we’ll be able to build full walls and do plumbing and all that.”

The program also is expanding to two new high schools, each of which will put their own spin on the logistics of scheduling and course content. Marshfield and Fond du Lac high schools both will offer an AGC Construction Career Academy this fall.

“We have really focused on having students engaged in work that is higher level and representative of real work they might be doing post-secondary,” said John Blankush, Marshfield High School principal. “We just see the Construction Career Academy as another step along the line.”

Of the 1,400 students at Marshfield High, about 40 are expected to enroll in the academy. In this instance, it will serve freshmen through seniors.

Marshfield, too, is hoping to construct a lab for the program. The details aren’t hammered out yet, but Blankush said he is confident a structure will be built.

“Kids do better in high school if they connect with the work they have chosen,” he said. “It makes them work harder in areas they aren’t so good at when they are involved in something, like the Career Academy, that they are really interested in.”

The two new facilities are steps toward the AGC of Wisconsin’s goal of having nine academies statewide. The AGC provides financial support to the programs with grants from the national AGC, and its members donate time, materials and money. Startup costs for each academy are about $40,000, Barker said.

The program’s full potential is yet to be tapped, Scherrer said. The AGC and the various school districts involved hope to see articulation agreements created that would allow students to earn college or university credits for the work they accomplish in high school.

Capstone projects have yet to be developed to top off successful seniors’ years, and internship opportunities are yet be explored.

Regardless of if or when those goals are reached, Kieliszewski said, the program is already a success: It has made school a rewarding experience and helped students take their first steps on a career path.