Nikiski students learn professional skills through technical education

In Nikiski Middle/High School, students are learning woodworking, construction, computer design, welding and more. They’re learning to develop projects with computer aided design and manufacturing, and they’re working with professional grade tools like saws, welding torches, laser cutters and vinyl printers.

Reid Kornstad and Eli Porter teach a variety of career and technical education courses at the school. Across three shops, they teach students to operate machinery and equipment, develop and pursue their own projects, and learn skills that they can take into their adult lives.

Students often learn multiple disciplines, Porter said. He pointed to middle school students who were working in a busy wood shop on Tuesday. Each was constructing a wooden box with a lid that can slide on or off, and Porter said they would get to spend a little time in the computer-aided design lab and laser their own designs onto the top.

Nikiski has an advantage being a middle and high school, Kornstad said. The middle schoolers have access to computer design, woodworking and welding courses — “we get them in and hook them early.”

When a student comes in, they work on a variety of projects — but “the goal isn’t necessarily the project, it’s what the project teaches you about the machine and what it can do,” Kornstad said. Some students quickly discover that the shop piques their interest, that it can serve as a creative outlet.

Then, Kornstad said, “you just kind of say ‘what do you want to do?’”

In career and technical education, Kornstad said, students learn skills, express themselves creatively, work cooperatively and make decisions. He credited the school district and College and Career Coordinator Annaleah Karron with supporting CTE at Nikiski and beyond.

From Nikiski’s shops come crafts, practical items, art and other oddities. Among other things, students have made plaques used as awards for sports and extracurriculars around the district and designed and produced engraved water bottles for Nikiski staff. A major annual project, Porter said, is a shed constructed by students and then sold to community members. Proceeds from the largely self-sustaining project go toward buying more materials.

This year, two standout projects were developed and constructed by Nikiski students who used their own skills and ideas to assemble them — a massive steel fire pit and a working go-kart crafted from what once was a shopping cart.

Those projects were spotlighted by Kornstad, Porter and Nikiski Principal Mike Crain at a meeting of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s Board of Education earlier this month.

At the meeting earlier this month, and again to the Clarion on Tuesday, Nikiski seniors Noah Douglas and Gavin Ley spoke about those projects and what the career and technical education they’ve received at their school has meant to them.

“I’m industry minded,” Douglas said Tuesday. “I want to go out in the community and work in the trades, so any skill that I can possibly pick up and get my hands on — that’s going to help me when I go out of high school — is what I’m looking to do.”

Douglas has learned welding, design, laser cutting, mechanics and more — he and Ley were leaders on the fire-pit project. He said he’s practicing welding for the upcoming SkillsUSA competition and completed projects for teachers, friends and other community members. Every project is a chance to practice.

Middle school students at Nikiski are required to try several electives. Douglas said he’d been in choir and art, but it was when he came to the shop that he “found my place.” Similarly, Ley said he discovered computer design early and took the course repeatedly — learning all of the machines.

It was during his junior year, Douglas said, that he decided that he wanted to leave something at Nikiski that would last. Quickly he thought of the school’s homecoming celebration — moving the fire up in front of the school.

So, Douglas, Kornstad and other students started working. They designed, iterated, sought out funding and got material by March 2024. A ring of designs including the Nikiski bulldog logo along the base of the pit were designed on the computers at the school and cut with the laser cutter. By the end of the school year, the bottom ring was done and some of the posts were installed.

“We got to school in August and we hit the ground running,” Douglas said. “I think the first day I started welding on this thing again.”

The pit needed to be ready by homecoming in September. It was finished the day it was lit for the bonfire. That evening, Douglas said, teachers, families and community members gathered around the roaring flame to celebrate homecoming — “it was just surreal.”

“It really was an incredible opportunity. To leave something here that’s going to last in my community for probably the rest of my lifetime.”

A plaque affixed inside the firepit reads “Class of 2025: Noah Douglas, Danny Broussard, Gavin Ley and Joseph Huntsman.”

While the firepit may be part of Nikiski for years to come, the “Go Shopping Kart” designed and constructed by Ley won’t stay anywhere for long. He said Tuesday that he’d been hanging onto the broken shopping cart that makes up the vehicle’s body for years. Looking for a big project his senior year, he revived a dormant idea of making it into a go-kart.

The work required constant iteration and innovation, as some things went to plan and many others didn’t. Ley installed suspension, a working hydraulic brake line, welded the frame and attached the wheels. The gas pedal is wired to a carburetor, which has a rebuilt motor, new piston, rod and spark plug and a custom exhaust all made by Ley. He used a vinyl cutter to design and apply decals.

Each piece, Ley said, was designed in on the computer and many were printed first in paper — to be lined up and checked against the rig before being cut from metal.

When things didn’t work out quite as planned, Ley adjusted and adapted — the brake line couldn’t reach to where he’d planned a pedal brake, so he developed a hand brake.

“It’s a lot of figuring out, reworking things to make sure that they fit the way they’re supposed to,” he said.

It’s easy, Ley said, to make something that works. It’s harder to make something that’s of quality.

CTE, Douglas said, kept him at Nikiski. Without the program, he might’ve tried to get out of school early. There are kids in Nikiski without some of the opportunities that he and Ley have, but they can still learn trade skills in Nikiski’s CTE programs and graduate with experience and ability to get a job.

Accountability, Principal Crain said, is a word that gets thrown around a lot in current discussions about school funding and outcomes. When people talk about getting a return on their investment in public education, often they’re referring to test scores.

“These two young gentlemen here are ready for the workforce,” he said. “When they leave this school this year, they’re ready to go out into a job. That’s because of the classes that we’ve taught here, their teachers, their mentors, the other students that are helping them out, their parents. There’s more than one way to show accountability and this is one way right here.”

A full recording of Nikiski’s presentation to the school board on Feb. 3 can be found at KPBSD’s BoardDocs website.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.