South Tahoe High students 'building' up their skills for the workforce

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Gone are the old high school woodshop prerequisite napkin holders and cutting boards. In their place are sheds and dog houses built to code, giving their creators valuable life and work skills for their futures.

Students in the South Tahoe High Woodshop 1 classes have been building dog houses, complete with insulation and roofs and sides built with techniques found in residential construction.

The project-based learning of the class gives students many of the skills and knowledge needed to head into the construction workforce upon graduation. After lengthy safety sections and studying about all types of construction the students were ready to start cutting and hammering away, all of which is evident no matter what class one walks into.

This past week the City of South Lake Tahoe building inspector checked out the framing of the dog houses, giving them approval so the students can on with insulation, siding, and roofs.

A visit to the large woodshop is a treat to the nose and ears for those that enjoy the smell of wood and the sound of hammering. On Monday, teams of students were measuring, cutting, planning and putting that hammer to use in a collaborative way.

When the three periods of woodshop are finished with the dog houses, Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care (LTWC) will come by and pick what they need for their new facility on Al Tahoe Blvd. While the houses are not big enough for the bears they have on-site, they are perfect for the raccoons that come to rehabilitate at LTWC.

Substitute teacher Kim Wilkins said he is excited to be helping out in the woodshop classes. "It's my dream come true," said the retired teacher with a construction background. Wilkins said it was always his dream to retire to South Lake Tahoe and be a substitute after a career teaching in the city of Modesto.

Wilkins said the success of the program is all due to Isaiah Tannaci's vision to provide students with lifelong learning skills through the school district's Career & Technical Education (CTE) program. Tannaci is the CTE department chair at STHS and woodshop is one of the many classes students can take that give them the stepping stones to a career.

STHS Principal Carline Sinkler echoed Wilkin's enthusiasm about Tannaci.

"I really appreciate Isaiah and his support of the CTE program," said Sinkler.

She said the woodshop classes represent a positive partnership with the South Lake Tahoe building community.

"It's about getting kids out to the workforce," said Sinkler. "It shows them a viable option."

Many of these students can move out into that workforce and help fill a void wit a nation-wide shortage of carpenters, framers and general construction laborers. They are also learning how to build environmentally sound "green" projects.

The woodshop classes and other CTE programs are a path to future jobs that may not require a college education, but a partnership between Lake Tahoe Community College (LTCC) and Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD) gets them college credits while still in high school. The woodshop class isn't a college credit class yet, and once a full-time teacher is in place that can fill that void, it will be.

Also included in the LTCC-LTUSD CTE collaboration are several hospitality and recreation classes, three years of dental hygiene, digital media arts, sports medicine, emergency medical responder, psychology, English and Spanish for Native Speakers. All students who start as freshmen at STHS are automatically enrolled at LTCC and they start earning college credits that first year.