(01/17/19) Each year for nearly 25 years, Blaine High School (BHS) students have built an entire house, from the ground up, with their own hands. We’re talking walls and roofs, plumbing, electrical, sheetrock, heating and cooling, insulation and siding — everything.
And each year those homes have gone to auction when complete, and can be found all over the state, from cozy sanctuaries in cabin country near Ely to single-family homes right here in Anoka County — all built by BHS students.
The current house is the 24th house BHS students have built; each project beginning as the school year opens and each project ready for market by the time the school year ends. Watch the video showcasing the class.
“It’s so awesome,” said Tim Nestrud, the BHS technical education instructor who teaches the carpentry classes that builds the house. “It’s fun, I enjoy teaching this — but it’s also a great experience for the students.”
It’s such a great experience, that for the first time, it’ll soon be available to all high school students in the district. Starting next year, the carpentry class and program that builds the house is moving to Anoka-Hennepin’s Secondary Technical Education Program (STEP), which is located on the campus of Anoka Technical College, and will be part of its construction careers pathway. See photos from a Jan. 17 visit to one Nestrud’s classes working on the home.
By moving the class and project to STEP, all district students interested in construction and carpentry will have access to the class, not just BHS students. “I think it’s a good thing to open this up to other kids in the district,” Nestrud said.
Jes Lipa, the director of STEP, said she’s long understood the importance of Nestrud’s carpentry class and more specifically, the home building project. It’s her career and technical education budget that covers the costs of the materials and supplies to build the home.
“It’s a fantastic project, but it’s also a critical opportunity to offer students,” she said. “Construction is a high-need industry and our kids need to have this experience. That’s our main focus.”
That’s also why she felt it important to move the class and project to STEP. “Previously, this has only been accessible to students at Blaine,” she said. “Now next year it’ll be accessible to students at all five high schools and our alternative sites as well.”
Jaidelyn Nordlund, a BHS junior, said the class is among the best she’s ever taken. “I like working with my hands, and the class is a lot of fun,” she said. “Plus, I’m learning a lot.”
She’s learning so much, in fact, Nordlund said she’s thinking about construction as a career. “We’ll see, but I really like it.”
Nestrud, who has been teaching in Anoka-Hennepin for 29 years, will follow the class to STEP so he can continue the home building project he launched. “I mean, I enjoy doing this,” he said. “And the interaction I have with the kids —it’s why you get into teaching.”
Nestrud said he first approached Anoka-Hennepin leaders in the mid-1990s about building the house as part of class after spending his first five years trying to get his students practical hands-on experience.
“We’d go finish basements, or build decks, but our students were never getting the whole picture,” he said. “So he pitched this idea, and they said, ‘let’s go for it’ and the rest is history.”
Lipa said there was a lot of interest from prospective students during STEP’s open house recently, and the plan is to offer three daily sections next year, with 15 students per section.
“I’m really excited,” she said. “This is such a cool opportunity — it’s kind of like Anoka-Hennepin’s hidden secret.”
STEP bills itself as a high school in a college setting where students primarily in grades 11 and 12 can explore hands-on technical and manufacturing careers while earning both high school and college credit. Most who attend are part-time students, which means they take core classes at their regular high school, and then come to STEP at some point during the day for technical and manufacturing studies.
