‘This is real-life stuff’: High schoolers learn carpentry, home ownership, housing history in new project at the Community School

The signature scents of lumber and sound of power tools aren’t usually what you’d encounter in the classrooms of the Community School, but then again, neither are terms like “adjustable rate mortgage,” “amortization schedule” or “fixed-rate loan.”

“I promise they’re some of the most informed teenagers in the city about mortgages,” joked Dave Egly, teacher at the option high school off Monroe.

As Egly led his class through lessons about the Legislature’s recent passage of a rent stabilization bill and asked thought-provoking questions about the consequences of redlining and racial segregation, his teaching partner led groups of kids on a different housing lesson in the school’s parking lot.

Outside, Nate Seaburg mans a nail gun with other teachers who know their way around a toolbelt, managing a small group of six students in their endeavor to build the trusses and the rafters of a roof to top the sheds they’ve built from scratch.

The project, called “Ceiling the Deal,” is a multiweek effort at the option school in partnership with Habitat for Humanity. They’re also taking weekly field trips to the organization’s construction site in Spokane Valley for kids to get their hands dirty digging ditches, hanging doors and laying flooring.

Once the students finish their combined 11 sheds, they’ll load them up for delivery at a Habitat for Humanity build site in Airway Heights where volunteers will soon pour the concrete foundations.

“They’re buying into it; this matters to them because there’s a house waiting for it,” said Matthew Inman, teacher and facilitator of science, technology, engineering and math at the Community School.

In less than half an hour, the group of teenagers has a finished skeleton of the roof, 2-by-4s evenly spaced from their precise measurements and secured with Seaburg’s nail gun operation. Students beam at their work, picturing the sheds full of tools or gardening gear by the time they’re completed in about a week.

“We’re definitely very proud of this product, just being able to do it by ourselves,” said junior Haiden Ramirez. “We just built a shed; like, that’s crazy. This is a structure … the vision is ‘vision-ing.’ ”

It’s also a labor of love from the staff, who don’t often see construction come up in the classroom. It takes about an hour a day for the teachers to cut and shape the wood so it’s prepped and ready for the kids to build. Every afternoon, a truck drops off a load of plywood that the staff hauls into the school with the help of kids who don’t mind staying late.

Some of the students have never so much as picked up a hammer before, Seaburg said. Now, they can’t say that.

“We all know how to use tape measures now; we know how to nail in a hammer,” Ramirez said. “This is real-life stuff.”

The endeavor has also instilled soft skills outside of beginner carpentry – namely, teamwork.

“We do a lot of communication stuff here,” junior Ryland Cano said. “But this is like physical teamwork where we’re like, ‘Hey, I can’t move this on my own. I need at least four people here.’ ”

Manual labor isn’t the only life skill the students are fostering through the partnership. It’s a comprehensive look at housing in Spokane – the history of racial discrimination in housing, homelessness, city zoning and potential future home ownership.

On Wednesday morning, students work through the details of buying a house. Through the aid of myriad guest speakers, they learn about credit scores, the benefits of renting versus buying a home and how to take out a loan to buy property.

“I feel way more prepared, honestly, and I’m less terrified to rent or consider owning a home,” junior Dot Bruwer said. “I’m not just kind of being thrown into the water.”

The exercise assuaged the fear of adulthood in many of the teenagers, some said. Still a ways off from homeownership themselves, the practice demystifies the process and allows the kids to picture themselves as homeowners, a position that many of the teens had already written off as unattainable in their lifetimes.

“Now that we’re looking into renting and buying and mortgages and loans, we’re seeing how all of that ties into getting the place,” said junior Eden Day. “I feel a lot more confident that I could walk into a bank and know what I need to say.”

While other lessons can feel abstract to students, junior Thalia Stevens said this would stay with her for her entire life – more so than anything else she’s learned in school.

“This is definitely one of the most helpful things I’ve learned here,” Day said. “This project in particular has been very enlightening.”