By the end of this semester, about 120 students at Cañon City Middle School will know how to work on a small engine and build a wooden charging station for their smartphones.

As they work on those projects, and several other hands-on tasks, they're becoming the first set of students in recent years to enroll in the woodshop class, part of the school's new Career and Technical Education program. The CTE program was brought back to the school by CCMS dean Jesse Oliver.

"We're really excited to see this is back, that the (school) board gave us an opportunity to go in this direction," Oliver said. "Having not been in the building for a long time, they let us try this new path, and I think it's been incredibly successful so far. Kids seem to really be liking it."

The program also was introduced, in part, to feed into a larger CTE program at Cañon City High School.

And for Oliver, vocational programs like those are worth keeping around.

"It's just gone away from something that middle schools and high schools teach," he said. "You know, I just think people figure it'll come out in a trade because, 'We decided we didn't want to go to college and we did that.' So, it disappeared, and I'd love to fight for it."

Earlier this September, Gov. John Hickenlooper introduced an initiative aimed at introducing high school students to apprenticeships. Additionally, Sen. Michael Bennet introduced a bill that could expand CTE courses in schools nationwide.


But CCMS's CTE program was brought back about a year before that trend started, with the intention of introducing career options to students who "might not excel in typical education," Oliver said. "This could hook them, and keep them involved."

"On a global level, you can do a lot of different stuff with CTE," he said. "You can do everything from basic woodshop up to auto mechanics."

He also said it requires students to use skills learned in other classes.

"You know, this class incorporates a lot of different disciplines across curriculum," Oliver said. "You have to read to understand technical manuals, you have to do math with dividing fractions and adding and measuring, when we get into small engines, you need to know the science of combustion."

Since the program is a required life skills class, every student will have taken it by the time they leave the school. The program, like other classes, will get more advanced as students get older, Oliver said.

Right now, many students are working on their wooden smartphone charging station. Limited to 20 students, each class starts off with basic woodshop instruction.

"We start them on hand tools, and measuring, and hand cutting and all that kind of stuff before we do the power tools," Oliver said.

Once they're done with that, they'll transition into more advanced work.

"Once they're done with this, we're going to transition to small engine repair and do some basic five horse power engines, and large systems. We're not going to break down and do the really little minute repairs, but we'll do larger systems," he said.

Eventually, he said, he'd like the program to incorporate basic welding skills.

The classes, which consist of 20 students each, are currently held in the school's vocational facility, with classroom and shop settings. The vocational building, separate from the school itself, might be removed by the Cañon City School District to help the district become a good candidate for state facilities funding, and address $14 million in repairs districtwide.

By eliminating the facility, and moving the program somewhere else, the district would meet capacity requirements detailed in the Building Excellent Schools Today program.

But for now, those who attend the class every day are working with the basics, and enjoying it.

Shannon Daly, who teaches all of the CTE classes, said the class is the best job he's had in his teaching career.

"I just love the opportunity to actually work with kids doing hands-on," he said. "This is my 20th year teaching, and this is the best job I've had."

From a student's perspective, sixth-grader Emily Bryan put it simply: "It's really fun."

Sara Knuth: 719-276-7644,