October 27, 2005 Missoulian Sec. B

Polson senior get hands-on lesson in building trade

Students gain experience, college, high school credits in Running Start program

By John Stromnes of the Missoulian

Polson-Ten seniors from Polson High School are building a house high on a hill above town.
From 11:30 a.m. to the end of each school day, they don heavy tool belts to learn the skills of the framing carpenter – a trade in high demand in the fast-growing Flathead Valley. Meanwhile, they qualify for both college and high school graduation credits by taking the course.
The program is called Running Start, and is offered by Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell.

Bill Roope, FVCC director of career and technical education, said hundreds of high school students in the northern Flathead have taken advantage of the hands-on carpentry course during the last 10 years. The same course is also attended by FVCC students working toward a one-year college certificate or a two-year associate degree in the building trades.
This fall, the home-building class came to Polson, courtesy of the Lake County Building Association, a chapter of the Flathead Building Association. Contractors and tradesmen in the association mentor students, help with the student fees at FVCC, and solicit thousands of dollars’ worth of donations in cash, building materials or special discounts, including a construction loan through Glacier Bank’s Polson branch. Ten Polson High seniors are enrolled, plus one FVCC student who, coincidentally, lives next door to the home now under construction on 22nd Street, on the hill above the high school – in the Woodbine Addition.

“We have a shortage of manpower (in the building trades),” said Mark Nunlist, a Polson residential construction contractor who is president of the local trade group. “But we don’t expect these people to all become carpenters.”

Most of the students in the class want to be carpenters after high school graduation next spring. Almost all students raised their hands – or hammers – high Wednesday when asked if they intend to find jobs I the construction trades after graduation.
Just one student said she is not planning on carpentry as a profession.
“I’m not going into carpentry. I’m going to college and expect to get a degree in forensic science,” said the only female in the class, Francis Baum, 17.

In a little over two months in the class, Baum has learned how to use hand saws, power miter saws and other tools. She said it’s a good life-skills course, even though she’s not planning on the building trades as profession. “I’ve learned about framing houses and pouring (concrete) forms,” she said. The students take their academic courses on campus in the morning, before being let loose to attend carpentry class about four blocks from the high school, said Polson High Principal Rick Rafter.

The students are under the close supervision of an experienced teacher and homebuilder, Ed Hendrix of the FVCC faculty. The home is a three-bedroom, two-bath, split-level with a daylight basement and about 1,600 square feet of living space, plus a garage on the lower level. It is an energy-efficient design and will be on the market by graduation day next spring. Nearly every student who takes the class and shows an interest in employment has been offered a job in the building trades subsequent to graduation, said the FVCC’s Roope.

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