The house that students built

By Bill O'Driscoll, Reno Gazette-Journal

A small, out-of-the-way construction site in southeast Reno serves as a petri dish of sorts for the area's building industry.

There, across from Donner Springs Elementary School, dozens of students from the Academy for Career Education charter school spend three periods a day erecting a modest house. They started last month on dirt and will finish next spring with an 1,870-square-foot,three-bedroom,
two-bath residence ready for sale to the highest bidder.

Nicacio Serrano, 16, left, and Robert Camargo, 17, cut plywood Wednesday while building a house off Hombre Way in Reno. The two are part of the Academy for Career Education charter school, whose students specialize in industrial trades. PHOTOS BY LISA J. TOLDA/RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL

It's the sixth house in the school's six years of operating an outdoor classroom, with an "impeccable" safety record, officials said, where teens learn skills increasingly hard to get at their age but coveted by an industry eager to employ them, with solid wages, after they graduate.
"There's a definite need, a tremendous need. You can't find enough qualified people who want to work," said Dale Lowery, president of D&D Plumbing Inc., as he watched the students at work on the foundation last week.

"These kids are motivated. They have an idea of what the real world is like here. And they can make a real good living at it."

Lowery is one of several area contractors on the ACE charter school board who assist in its vocational education endeavors.

"I come out and spend a day with them, tell them what we do. It gives them an idea," he said. "From my standpoint, yeah, I'm recruiting. I try to get the top ones. As an employer, this is a good tool for us, a recruiting tool. There are such few vocational programs left in high school."

From surveying to drafting blueprints to working with power tools, the students do it. In fact, the only chores left to the professionals are the digging of the foundation due to the close quarters and wall taping and texturing due to the exacting nature of the work.

Otherwise, the electrical, plumbing, woodwork, carpeting, painting, roofing and all other pieces to the puzzle are done by teens' hands under the watchful eyes of their ACE instructors. At the end of each period, students gather to assess the day's work.
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Different career paths

Travis Hayes, a 17-year-old senior who plans to graduate in January and wants to pursue electrical work, already knows about the trades, having watched his father work in construction.
"I've always wanted to do this. It's fun," he said beneath his hard hat. "You learn a good trade that will never go away.

Student Amanda Howard, 17, moves rebar Wednesday during the building of a home in Reno.

"And besides, I like working with my hands. And this," he said, scanning the construction site, "I want to build something that I can show off to my kids."

Chase Haeger, a 16-year-old junior, envisions a career in plumbing or concrete, saying he doesn't mind getting his hands dirty.

"I needed to get into something with hands-on activity, doing something every day," he said.

And they are, after all, still kids, and kids make mistakes. So, when they do something wrong in this class, they correct it then and there.

"If you nail a board when it's not plumbed, you gotta tear it out," Hayes said. "If not, mistakes will follow you. It's how you learn. If you don't get the stemwalls right, it will follow you all the way up to the roof."

Such interest in vocational work comes at a time when more and more emphasis in high school is on getting into college. But not every teenager is cut out for academics after graduation, said Mike Cate, CEO of Pavers Plus and another contractor active with ACE charter school.

"Some very bright kids need another route," Cate said. "This teaches them discipline, respect, responsibility. It's great."

Leigh Berdrow, ACE administrator and co-founder, said the aim is to present opportunities, and the house, built on land bought from the Washoe County School District and whose sale proceeds go into the next year's project, is the perfect stage.

"Look across the country, and the biggest group of people who give back are contractors, people who went to high school and then went into a trade," she said. "There's always a demand."
And even if they don't pursue a trade, there's always something students can take with them, even if it's just the correct way to pound a nail.
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"You get students who have never even used a shovel," said instructor Ed Horan. "In our society, it seems everything's hired out."

ACE charter school, with 205 students including 32 girls, is not entirely outdoors. There's diesel mechanics and drafting/design studies as well. As a fully accredited public school that began accepting freshmen for the first time this year, students also get the required classroom studies in math, English, science and other core classes.

An ACE diploma holds equal weight with other Washoe County high schools, but with added value: skill sets, along with job-safety certifications, when the construction industry comes calling.

"A lot of them can get hired right out of high school," Cate said. "We're looking. Several people I know who have hired (graduates) have been pleased."

Lowery said wages in his line start at $12.50 an hour, and after four years of apprenticeship salaries can soar to $60,000 to $70,000 a year.

"We're giving kids an idea of what the trades are all about," he said.