Minuteman High Students Use Skills to Help Community: Report

LEXINGTON, MA—Minuteman students are building and renovating homes designated as affordable housing in Wayland and Lexington.

According to a report by Wicked Local Lexington, Minuteman carpentry students from Arlington and other areas are helping to build and renovate homes in Wayland, Lexington and Lincoln. The students are also joined by Minuteman’s plumbing, electrical and HVAC students.

Reports Wicked Local Lexington, who broke the story on their website.

Students are expected to put their newly-gained technical skills to use beyond the classroom in situations that mirror as closely as possible what they would actually encounter on the job. For example, carpentry students at Minuteman build homes in the school’s district communities, do projects such as creating Little Free Library book boxes for the town of Needham.

Vocational education like what is offered at Minuteman is a pipeline for workforce development in this state. Gov. Charlie Baker affirmed his support for vocational education in his 2016 State of the Commonwealth message, lauding it as “a pathway to a bright future” and allocating $83.5 million to it in his proposed fiscal 2017 budget.

Homes in three of the school’s district towns, Wayland, Lexington and Lincoln, are being built or renovated by Minuteman’s carpentry students, in conjunction with students in plumbing, electrical and HVAC. These projects are in various stages of completion.

“Each is somewhat unique and gives the students a variety of learning experiences including new construction, old construction, cold environment, warm environment and working with outside general contractors and volunteers,” said Minuteman’s plumbing and HVAC instructor and offsite project coordinator Kyle Romano.

You can also view WickedLocal’s full report here.