With hammers and saws, these students are building a house in high school
An immersive school program is giving some Alberta high school students the opportunity to build homes from the ground up.
In partnership with Coventry Homes, Grade 10 students in the Parkland School Division, west of Edmonton, can earn diploma credits while building a house from the ground up.
This year, students in the Building Futures program are building a duplex in a Spruce Grove neighbourhood.
The program, one of many offered at Connections for Learning, an alternative education site for the school division, began in 2020.
"There's a good life to live in the trades," program teacher Mike Holton told CBC's Edmonton AM.
"We're just trying to get kids some exposure to that and give them an experience with that."
Holton, who runs a roofing company when he isn't teaching classes, always admired the skills he learned from his father, a tradesman.
He felt students should have the opportunity to learn about the trades while studying.
"It's a pretty rewarding program from a teacher's [viewpoint] because you get to see the kids grow so much over the course of a year," he said.
At the end of the first year of the program, a teacher from the school division bought the house the students had built.
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Ashton Jolicoeur, a student in the program this year, said he has always wanted to be in the trades.
"My dad was in the trades, he's a plumber," Jolicoeur said. "I looked up to him and always wanted to follow after him."
He said he really liked framing the house, and plans to join the framing team as an apprentice, but he could do without the cold.
"I liked the aspect of being on the job site and doing school work every now and then," Jolicoeur said.
The first day his class was taken to the site, students were told to pick up any rubbish they noticed. The next week, they saw that a hole had been dug for the home's foundation.
"It was just fun," Jolicoeur said, adding that balancing schoolwork, building the house, and his part-time job is hard.
A homeroom approach
Students work on building the house from September until June. At the same time, they complete core coursework required for the Alberta high school diploma.
They do their studying on the building site. The garages are turned into makeshift classrooms with desks and chairs.
Students partner with contractors and learn everything from framing to plumbing and more, said Mike Lees, who works with Coventry Homes.
This year 22 students are in the program. Holton said 12 are already considering the registered apprenticeship program starting next year.
Those who do enter the apprenticeship program will be awarded 100 carpentry hours, 50 electrical hours and 50 plumbing hours for their ticketed trade.
Students also receive up to 35 high school credits.
Lees is hoping to expand the program to more school grades across the province to help address the shortage of workers in the trades.
