BOISE, Idaho — The Nampa School District held a groundbreaking Wednesday for a single-family home project getting ready to be built by students.
Nampa Mayor Debbie Kling and Nampa School District Superintendent Dr. Greg Russell both attended Wednesday’s ceremony to mark the start of a single-family house that students will build from the ground up.
“Construction is very important life skill nowadays,” Columbia High School junior Marshall Fenton said.
Fenton is among the student builders. The students are from Columbia, Skyview and Nampa high schools and they are part of the Idaho Center for Advanced Technology, also known as ICAT.
ICAT is a career and technical education school in the Nampa School District. It has 28 pathways, including construction.
“It's basically learning how to build houses," Fenton said. "We are now starting this new house, gives us plenty of different life skills, teach us how to build houses, give us an opportunity, maybe own our own business, or get in a really successful construction business."
Fenton, along with Nampa High School senior, Carlos Madero, will soon get to building the house.
“In Idaho, as most people know, we're getting a lot more people moving from different states,” Madero said. “There's a lot more demand for houses being built, so I think it's an important skill to know because this could be a future job that we can have.”
It is a skill construction teacher Brett Miller is all too familiar with.
“I don't think there's anybody, except for people who have built a house, who understand what it's like to stand back when the house is completely finished and say 'I did that with these two hands,'" Miller said. "Now to give that opportunity to these kids, and to have a house that's going to sit here for 100 to 200 years, they'll be able to bring their kids their grandkids by this house and say, 'yeah, when I was in high school, a junior senior, I built that, I did that.' That was the first house I ever was a part of and that's, to me, that's exciting."
Miller also said the students learn everything from tool safety and working with blueprints. He also owns his own construction business and understands the demand.
“Every person I talk to on a daily basis, they need help and not just one or two guys, they need 10-15,” Miller said. “So, the need is there.”
Now, the students are building that house and they have been building toward the movement for a while.
“Half the time we're in the classroom and have to time we're on job sites,” Madero said. “We built a ramp for a lady that had gotten into an accident, and she couldn't use her legs anymore and so her husband would have to carry her up the stairs. So, we built a ramp for her and stuff. We built dog houses, multiple sheds for people.”
The plan is to have the house done by the end of the school year and when they are done with the class, the students will be ready and certified to work in the real world.
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