Masonry Magazine February 2006 Page. 21
The masonry program consists of students who attend their home high school for academics for half of the day and the Career Center for technical training for the other half. The program familiarizes students with several aspects of the trade, from the concept of masonry to hands-on projects. As the students' skill levels improve, their projects become more complex.
Each May, the graduating students demonstrate their skills at the mason contractors' hall. Many of the seniors are offered apprenticeships as a result of this event. This is a "win-win situation for all involved: these young people have an opportunity at a career job, and the contractors gain apprentices that have a tremendous advantage - the technical training they received at Lewis and Clark.
For more information, visit www.stcharles.k12.mo.us/lewis&clark.
Alfred State College, School of Applied Technology, Wellsville, N.Y.
Instructor: Steven Richard
Number of Students: 80-100
The building trade's program of carpenters, plumbers, electricians and masonry students combine their learned skills to fill a subdivision with stylish homes that are sold on the real estate market. These projects are their way of contributing to the surrounding community they live in.
For more information, visit www.alfredstate.edu.
Penta Career Center, Perrysburg, Ohio
Instructor: Mike Hardenbrook
Number of Students: 64
It's 8:30 a.m. Tools, saws and mud boards are all being loaded into the dumper. They're being hauled to the job site to lay block on the foundation for house #47. Next month, the crew will start the fireplace and brick veneer on house #46. In between these residential jobs, there is concrete to pour, CMU dugouts to build, and paving brick to lay.
This is not a mason contractor's crew; this is the senior class of the masonry program. The two-year college supplies an associate's degree to graduates who learn through building cavity and composite walls, laying brick veneer on relief angles, setting architectural precast and limestone, and creating small brick and block foundations on changing grade. Classroom work includes reading and planning from blueprints, estimating, job supervision and testing, and specifying concrete, mortar and grout. Students don't just talk about it-they do it!
Just above the campus, nestled in the beautiful green hills that surround the school, students from the entire
Every year, the Penta Career Center's construction trades programs build two houses, and the masonry students install the basement floors, garage floors, sidewalks, driveways and patios, and complete all of the brickwork. In addition to these projects, students complete dugouts, ticket booths, concession stands and more for area school districts. Also, students helped complete the masonry work for three Habitat for Humanity projects during the past school year.
In 2004, the students dismantled a local historic post office so it could be restored and moved. The students dismantled irreplaceable rock-faced masonry block, worked with old high-lime content mortar, and observed the process of numbering the materials for reassembly.
The Voice of the Mason Contractor
February 2006
Masonry 19