Win-win apprenticeship programs provide adults path to employment and skilled workforce for region
Classroom desks were built for students, but not every student was built to sit at a desk. The ones who fidget and squirm a little are the ones Staci Teegarden has her eye on.
Teegarden is part of American River College’s Workforce Development Apprenticeship Program and works in conjunction with CAERC partner Sacramento Employment Training Agency (SETA)/Sacramento Works and the Sacramento Transportation Regional Infrastructure Partners in Education. In short, she puts students to work.
“A lot of these students were the hands-on kids,” she says. “They are tactile learners who like to take everything apart and put it back together again. Maybe they can’t sit still at a desk all day. But if you give them the opportunity to work with their hands, all of a sudden they get straight A’s.”
“With a better-skilled workforce, we want to make it friendly to companies who want to build here.”
Staci Teegarden, American River College Apprenticeship Special Projects Coordinator
Whether offered through community colleges or adult schools, pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs direct these students, who have often fallen through the cracks in the economy, into training programs that lead to well-paying jobs.
While they can be just out of high school or in their 50s, the average student age is 27.
“That’s when life starts to get real,” Teegarden says. “Bills, responsibilities.”
Students come to the program from different places. Some are working, but at low-paying, nonunion jobs, when they realize that more training can lead to better outcomes. Others are displaced workers or those looking for a second chance after a run-in with the law.
There are five separate apprenticeship programs, with courses applicable toward an associate degree. There are pathways for carpenters, drywall/lathers, iron workers, electricians and sheet metal workers.
Workers in the program will play a major role in the expansion of Sacramento’s infrastructure, including construction of the new entertainment and sports complex, levees, waste water facilities and light rail.
While Sacramento, like other cities, is still recovering from the recession, new building projects are only part of the equation.
“With a better-skilled workforce, we want to make it friendly to companies who want to build here,” Teegarden says. “And when there’s a big project, like the arena, we want it to be local people working on it and spending their money here, instead of having workers from San Francisco or Oakland taking the money back there.”
The opportunity for students, and the need for the economy, is clear. It is estimated that, on an average day, between 8,000 and 10,000 Americans reach age 65, leaving a void of skilled workers. It’s one of the reasons the apprenticeship program is experiencing a sharp upswing, with enrollment up about 25 percent over the past six months.
“This is a pathway to the middle class,” Teegarden says.
For more information, visit www.capitaladulted.org.
Written by Matt Jocks
| Regions | Classes |
|---|---|
| Northern California | Careers in Manufacturing-Construction |
