Education Week - June 6, 2018 - 9

After-School Programs
Enter Career-Tech Space
By Marva Hinton
Before Audrey Collins joined an after-school
career-mentoring program in Oregon, she
wasn't sure what career she'd pursue after
high school.
The 18-year-old, a new graduate of Grant
High School in Portland, knew she liked math
and had thought about mechanical engineering but admitted that she "honestly had no
idea what that meant."
That changed during her junior year when
she decided to take part in the ACE Mentor
Program. (ACE stands for architecture, construction, and engineering.) The not-for-profit
organization was launched in New York City
in 1995 by 17 companies in those fields. Today,
more than 9,000 students from 1,000 high
schools across the country participate in the
free after-school program.
Programs like ACE are part of a growing
interest in career and technical education, or
CTE, in high schools across the country-both
in school and after school. In Portland, as in
many other districts, the push to increase
CTE offerings is partly coming from leaders within the business community and the
trades, who see it as a way to keep the pipeline into their professions flowing with workers who have the right job skills. The afterschool option gives students who are already
taking CTE classes something extra, while
permitting students in regular classes to try
on careers to see if they fit.
"After-school programs are great spaces to
provide the skills that we're hearing more
and more that employers want," said Jillian
Luchner, the policy manager at Afterschool Alliance, a national advocacy group. "Employers
are frequently mentioning that they're looking for people to be able to work in a team,
to problem-solve, and to communicate well,
especially among their new hires."
Besides giving students an entry-level view
into a wide variety of construction and designrelated careers and teaching soft skills, the
after-school program takes them out of the
school and into the workplace.
"They're working in teams on a project with
a deadline. They're working with people who
come from a lot of different backgrounds and
experience levels, and they have to learn how
to work together quickly and effectively and
understand how their part of the project affects
the whole," said Susan Nielson, the interim executive director of Oregon's ACE program.

and plans to one day head an architecture
firm or construction company that focuses on
sustainability.
"I've gotten a really good grasp on what the
different industries are, and what kinds of jobs
you can have within them, and how they work
together in a way that I don't think any classes
at your typical high school offer," she said. She
received an $8,000 scholarship from ACE and
plans to attend Oregon State University to
major in construction-engineering management.

From ACE to PACE
While the work students do in ACE is conceptual, another after-school program in the
district gives students the opportunity to work
with their hands to build a project. Jan Osborn, the district's career and technical education program coordinator, calls it "giving them
both sides of a construction story."
Modeled on ACE, the PACE program-short
for the Plumbing, Air, Carpentry, and Electrical
Mentorship Program-is a partnership begun
in 2015-16 between the district and local leaders in those trades. It was partly in response to
a shortage of workers in the construction trades,
and many program graduates are headed to apprenticeships and two-year degrees.
Joel Gonzalez is a recent graduate of Franklin High School. The 18-year-old, who describes himself as a "hands-on learner," said
he only knew he wanted to go into a trade before taking part in PACE.
"I wanted to expose myself to which one I
liked more and which one I could see myself
working in," he said.
After learning about the four trades and
doing hands-on work in each one over eight
weeks, Joel decided on carpentry. He plans to
start an apprenticeship in the field.
"I like the fact that every day you advance
in the project," he said. "At the end of the day,
you see what you accomplished, and the next
day, you know what you have to get done."
Bridget Quinn is a PACE mentor and the

Photos by David Pascual-Matias

Portland programs offer taste of building trades

ABOVE: Benson Tech High School junior
Major Jimmerson learns about the
surveying as a career during a summer
session of the PACE mentoring program.
Run jointly by the district and local
leaders in the building trades, the
program exposes students to careers in
plumbing, air conditioning, carpentry,
and electrical fields.
Sydney Hathaway, another Benson Tech
student, wires a light switch during her
sophomore year with the PACE program.

workforce-development coordinator for the
NECA-IBEW, or the National Electrical Contractors Association and the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Electrical
Training Center.
"There's been a real shortage of youth getting into our apprenticeship program," said
Quinn. "The average age is about 28, 29 years
old, so we're trying to bring that age down.
We're trying to do that by getting into high
schools and giving kids the opportunity to get
their hands on some tools and some materials
and see how satisfying it is to create things."
From January to March, students taking
part in the program meet in the district's
central office once a week for two hours with
trade mentors. They work in pairs to build
a wall and install electrical, plumbing, and
sheet metal for air-conditioning vents.
"The very first night they're putting on a tool
belt and starting to work with the tools, so it's

not a sit-and-get program," said Jan Osborn. "I
think that's why we really get the kids to come
back week after week."
In addition to the hands-on work, the students learn about the apprenticeship programs
that allow students to "earn while you learn." As
PACE winds down each year, students' parents
are invited in to see their work and hear presentations about the career opportunities available to those who complete apprenticeships.
"The parent part is critical because that's
probably one of our biggest barriers," said
Quinn. "Parents tend to freak out a little bit if
they hear that their kid's not planning to go to
college, so we like to try to eliminate those fears
and show them the wages and the benefits."
Students who complete apprenticeships
earn credit toward an associate degree.
Proponents of the after-school programs
stress that they are really about giving students freedom to explore careers when they
can do so for free.
"If students enter the program and decide
that they really want to go into these career
fields, that's a success," said Kristen Kohashi,
the program manager of Oregon's ACE program. "But if a student enters our program and
decides that they don't want to do it, we also
consider that a success, because then at least
the student is making a more informed decision
as to what they're going to do after high school."
Coverage of after-school learning opportunities
is supported in part by a grant from the Charles
Stewart Mott Foundation. Education Week retains
sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.
Visit the CURRICULUM MATTERS blog,
which tracks news and trends on this issue.
www.edweek.org/blogs

'Harnessing' Talent
In Portland, ACE is primarily open to juniors and seniors. From January through May,
ACE students meet once a week for two hours
with their professional mentors from local
architecture, construction, and engineering
firms. The meetings usually take place in the
mentors' downtown offices. Students work in
teams of 10 to 13 on a building-design challenge and have eight to 10 mentors across the
three ACE fields assigned to them.
"There's a lot of need for really talented
young people to enter the industry, and it's a
really good way to do outreach to high schoolers who are maybe not sure about what they
want to do and how to harness their talent,"
said Holly Snow, an ACE mentor and an estimator at JE Dunn Construction in Portland.
That was the case for Audrey. Participating
in the program led to a paid summer internship with Portland's Anderson Construction
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Education Week - June 6, 2018

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