Dunbar Vocational Career Academy. Photo Credit: By Klio0701 via Wikipedia- Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,This fall, the city of Chicago will transition one of its vocational high schools to a curriculum based solely around training students to enter the construction workforce.
The move represents a return to form for Dunbar Vocational Career Academy which, prior to World War II, focused solely on the trades.
According to a report from the Chicago Sun Times, the school’s new curriculum was developed with experts working in the trades and is tailored around the industry’s current demands of new workers in such a way that it will serve as a model moving forward.
The city is renaming Dunbar to the Construction Trades Campus at Dunbar, and says it will serve as a “citywide hub” for students interested in careers in “general construction, carpentry, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, welding and electricity,” the Sun Times reports.
According to a press release, the new construction school will offer an “intensive” two-year option of daily classes that will prepare students for “apprenticeships, post-secondary education, certification programs or a living-wage job.”
To ensure exposure to professional practices, the paper reports that the school will partner with construction firms and trade unions.
