Beaverton Education Foundation

Category: Grant Update

  • Grant Update – Summer Construction Trades Exploration

    Grant Update – Summer Construction Trades Exploration

    Measure twice, cut once!

    The Middle School Trades Exploration Pilot Program students mastered design, demolition, drywall, carpentry, and concrete work, all while team building and creating a professional quality, useful installation.

    Summer Trades Exploration offered a four-week program connecting students to the construction trades. Thirty middle schoolers participated, and an additional fifty were on the waiting list to attend the pilot. The program was designed to bridge the opportunity gap for Beaverton School District students who may want to explore other high-wage, in-demand employment options outside of traditional college pathways as they move through their high school careers. In collaboration with industry partners, students designed and completed a construction project on-site at BSD Central Office, worked with multiple professionals in a variety of trades and visited real-time District building projects as part of this summer program. The program provided a hands-on educational foundation for students in the following areas:

    • Equipment safety
    • Industry safety procedures
    • Construction math skills
    • Basic drafting, design and building techniques

    Regional industry growth in the area of construction expects employment openings to grow by 31% through 2022. Current projections challenge economic expansion in our state beyond the 2022 mark with the expectation that the trades will lose 17% of the workforce as older workers retire. Industry partners agree that engaging students at the middle school level in non-college-bound careers is a gap to bridge in order to meet workforce demand.

    The pilot focused on three primary objectives:

    1. Develop skills that carry over into the traditional classroom

    1. Summer program participants developed a building design project focusing on teamwork, creativity, and professional work skills
    2. Construction Technology incorporates core content skills that are critical in increasing student outcomes in math and reading
    3. Students benefit from a conceptual application to real-world hands-on problem solving.

    2. Introduce Middle School students to CTE in our district

    1. This program helps build middle school interest in CTE programs across the district before students enter high school
    2. Nationally, 93% of all students who take one CTE class in high school graduate with their class
    3. We believe that a free summer program will attract families of all backgrounds.

    3. Expose students to alternative high-wage, high-demand careers in construction industry

    1. Provide our middle school students opportunities to explore careers that they are not ordinarily exposed to in the classroom setting so they might add that experience to their career exploration tool belt before they enter 9th grade
    2. Exposure to Construction Technology also leads to other related fields such as design and engineering

    Current partners in the work include:

  • Grant Update: Highland Park Middle School

    Grant Update: Highland Park Middle School

    Ben Lloyd of Highland Park Middle School shared the experiences and outcomes of the Mini Arcade build and Library Transport Vehicle (LTV) projects. Both projects were generously funded through BEF’s Beaverton’s Choice Program with matching funds provided by Intel Corp.

    “We wanted to identify hands-on experiences to teach design and engineering in a fun and relevant way. We were able to achieve this by having the kids come up with an original arcade cabinet design and solving a challenge in our library.

    The response to the mini arcade build was overwhelmingly positive among the kids. I can honestly say that the kids have had more fun through the design and building process than even playing with the arcades afterward, and that is saying a lot.There was a core group of about a dozen kids who were involved with the initial design of the mini cabinets and then dozens more who have gotten to tinker with the kits and learn how the Raspberry Pi software platform works.

    As our team worked to minimize our expenses, we determined we had enough money to take on another design challenge. The students identified challenges in our school that they could design and assemble and came up with this amazing electric vehicle solution – the LTV. Over 100 of our current students worked on both the electric vehicle and the arcade games.

    With the support of BEF and all of the donors to the project, we are positioned to carry out the same type of project each year. We developed a kit for the arcade cabinets which we can easily tear down and redesign with a different group of kids. We have found the Raspberry Pi boards to be challenging but also extremely open-ended for future use. The LTV also gives our students a clear visual reminder of what they can do.”

  • Grant Update – Kids Count Grant

    Grant Update – Kids Count Grant

    Learning never stops at our BEF-funded summer elementary programs.

    More than 500 elementary students will spend the summer improving their reading, writing and math skills.