New Doors Open for Students In District

Cardozo Academy Builds Job Skills

Joseph Gunter, a Cardozo High senior, is studying electrical work at the school's new academy. The program started in 2005 and now has its own wing. Gunter was eager to get started on a wiring simulator. "It's like a puzzle," he said. (By Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)

Phyllis Percy grew up playing with tape measures and helping her father as he handled the repairs in their Northwest home, everything from hanging windows to coping with plumbing emergencies.

Now the senior at Cardozo Senior High School in the District is poised for more formal training at the school's new construction academy -- a brightly lit renovated wing with hands-on learning stations and new equipment that will give more students throughout the city a chance to study heating, ventilation and air conditioning, carpentry and electrical trades.

"I can't wait to get in here so we can build nice stuff that I can put in my room," said Percy, 18, looking around yesterday at a jigsaw, a band saw and other tools.

After more than three years of planning with the city's leading developers and construction businesses, school and city leaders officially opened the doors yesterday of the Cardozo Academy of Construction and Design, a $2 million public-private partnership that represents the first construction of new classrooms for those disciplines in 40 years.

The goal is to have a technology-focused program that trains students to meet industry needs.

"It's not the same type of courses that students . . . are in now, that their parents associate with vocational education," said Alisha Hyslop, assistant director of public policy for the Association for Career and Technical Education. "It's a much more rigorous, challenging environment that's very relevant to their futures."

The poor state of vocational education in the city was a point of discussion during last year's political campaign for District and school board positions. The construction academy is designed to prepare students who may not go to college for jobs connected to the city's economic development.

Most D.C. public school students don't graduate from high school, and less than 10 percent graduate from college, according to a report released in October by the State Education Office.

The Cardozo program is supported by the nonprofit District of Columbia Students Construction Trades Foundation Inc., whose members include construction companies Miller & Long and Donohue, developer PN Hoffman and United Bank.

The effort also grew out of the JOBS Coalition, led by the Rev. Anthony J. Motley, which challenged industry leaders such as John McMahon, chairman of Miller & Long and president of the foundation, to hire more District graduates for local jobs.

"We're not putting young people on the street with employable skills," McMahon said yesterday. "We realized it was not an unemployment problem but an unemployable problem."

The academy students still take core classes in English and math to prepare for college, and they also receive certification in their areas of specialization. If students decide to search for work right after high school, business officials say that they will be competitive for industry jobs.

The academy started in 2005 with 43 students, and last year there were 60. By 2009, it anticipates serving 150 students in grades 10 through 12. Students throughout the city can apply for admission.

When the academy first opened, students of three disciplines -- HVAC, carpentry and electrical trades -- were crammed in an old biology lab on the school's first floor. Director Shellie Morrison said students mostly learned from books in the classroom and worked with Habitat for Humanity to get construction experience.

"Now we'll have state-of-the-art equipment, computers, and they can get hands-on training every day."

Carpentry teacher Marshall Janifer recalled yesterday how he was sometimes hesitant to turn on the noisy saws in the old lab for fear that they would disturb students in nearby classrooms.

At other times, the equipment was unreliable, or when it broke down, it was difficult to get replacement parts because some machines were more than 30 years old.

Senior Joseph Gunter, 17, is focusing on electrical courses. Standing before an empty wiring simulator yesterday, he said he couldn't wait for the teacher to put in switches, plugs and light fixtures so he could figure out how to make everything work.

"It's like a puzzle," he said.