Titus Mayo, a junior at Construction Careers Center, nicely sums up the crux at the core of a high school started by contractors with a focus on the building trades.
“My mother, on the one hand, thinks it’s a good thing that I always enjoyed construction, but my father says I have a nice mind and wanted a more academic school for me,” he said.
“So I stay here, to pursue what I want for my mother and myself, but I plan to go onto college for my father and myself.”
This young man’s dual intentions also reflect the design of the school – the first charter school in St. Louis, started in 2001 with 100 freshmen.
“We tell parents and students this is not just about hammers and nails,” said Vice Principal Greg Wilson. “I tell them to make sure you have five options – five different colleges and five fields of work.”
Construction Careers Center (CCC) has mandated open enrollment and is tuition-free, though it can only accept students who live in the city, according to its charter with St. Louis Public Schools.
The school was started by the Associated General Contractors of St. Louis (AGC) and is administered by a seven-member board that is appointed by the board of AGC. This, in turn, reflects the political fragmentation and lack of democratic process inherent in the charter school model favored by Mayor Francis G. Slay and opposed by public school advocates.
The politics of its own industry partly motivates AGC in running the school, given the political pressure at times applied to developers and contractors to include minorities (and women) in projects that benefit from taxpayer subsidy.
AGC reports that in 2007 its member firms built projects worth more than $3 billion throughout the St. Louis region.
Scott J. Wilson is president of S. M. Wilson & Co. and chairman of the board of the AGC. He said when the idea of the charter school was first proposed, “we weren’t talking about workforce inclusion,” though that motive became the spark behind CCC.
“Then we thought, ‘Maybe we need a grass-roots thing to take kids from the neighborhood right into the trades,’” Wilson said.
“A pipeline project is the only thing we can think of that could work in getting people into the trades – we have tried everything else, and nothing worked.”
Historically, black workers in St. Louis have not held high expectations for fairness and inclusion regarding the construction trades. All that coded talk the Hillary Clinton campaign offered about “lunch-bucket Democrats” who could not be counted upon to elect a black president was referring, in part, to this demographic.
As Les Toenjes, president of the association, said, “Everybody at the AGC didn’t wake up one day and think the idea of this school was the best thing since canned Budweiser.”
At first, local unions also felt their turf was being threatened by the school.
“There was an initial pushback from the unions – they feared we would be trying to train people and get around their apprentice programs,” Toenjes said.
“Now, they understand this is preparatory rather than trying to turn these kids into journeymen. We are not going to get skilled laborers out of this. But at least they’ll understand what the options are.”
Terry Nelson, president of the Carpenters District Council of St. Louis, serves on the CCC board and is one of its staunchest advocates.
‘It’s hard. It doesn’t matter.’
Veronica “Gina” Washington, the school’s principal, has been at the helm of CCC since its inception. Like the board members, she has to concern herself with funding – mostly states monies, with some federal Title I funds – and funding shortfalls. She credits the AGC with plugging various funding gaps and providing resources, such as a new computer lab last year.
Toenjes said AGC is “breaking even” on running the school. During a tour of the school, in one workspace he pointed out a stack of plaster-encrusted bricks that obviously had been used by more than one class.
“We reuse,” Toenjes said. “We’re sustainable.”
Washington is well aware that the school also deals with sometimes painful microeconomics in the lives of its students. AGC led a warm-clothing drive during a recent spell of particularly cold weather. “We ran out in one day,” Washington said. “That’s reality.”
She said 95 percent of the school’s students commute using public transportation – and are hurt by Metro fare increases.
Washington and her instructors also face the academic shortfalls that are all-too-common in urban districts.
“Reading deficiency is our biggest problem,” said one instructor, Kelvin Carter. “Mathematically, we can build a student quickly – reading is where the glitch is.”
That fits the focus of the school. As freshman Krista Smith has already learned, “There is a lot of math in construction.”
But, of course, reading comprehension is a major factor in the standardized tests used to judge schools.
The challenges for CCC and any school in the city are manifold. Wilson compared the doggedness of the school’s board members with a contractor toughing his way through a job, despite unfavorable weather conditions.
“We said we’d do a high school,” Wilson said. “It’s hard. It doesn’t matter. We’ve still got to do a high school.”
A voice
The teachers at the school would agree that it’s hard – which is the primary reason they decided to organize with union representation.
“The main reason the teachers at the school were interested in forming a union is they wanted a voice in how things were done,” said Byron Clemens,
vice president of the St. Louis Teachers and School Related Personnel Union Local 420.
“They had concerns about availability of supplies and textbooks, and they wanted a more consistent discipline policy. And, sure, they want a salary schedule – they want to know how much they will be paid next year.”
Clemens said a new agreement between the CCC board and Local 420 seemed imminent, but then “all of the sudden it blew up.”
The union staged an informational picket at the school last week.
The unionized environment of the trades in St. Louis made CCC a promising target for the first organized group of teachers at a charter school in Missouri. While the teacher’s union can be expected to hold CCC and its board accountable and provide challenges, ultimately it is the unionized environment that makes such a school viable and attractive in St. Louis.
“In this town, if you get into the trades, it’s a living wage,” Wilson said.
“It’s there for the taking, but it’s hard – it requires a certain amount of discipline. But because of the unionized environment, it is a living wage.”
