When Dan Moffit’s eighth grade students at Elkins Pointe Middle School file into his construction class first thing in the morning, they place their bookbags on shelves they made. After the morning announcements, they quickly get to work using sanders, drills and saws to make Adirondack chairs.
Some students are sanding wood, others are drilling screws and a few are measuring boards. Moffit roamed the room, monitoring their progress. He stopped to help them when necessary. Sometimes, he said, that means reviewing the basics.
“We have to find the center of the back of those chairs,” he said. “So they take a tape measure and it’s 22 and a quarter (inches). ‘What’s half of 22?’ Some (students) can’t tell me. So we have to work through that math.”
Moffit’s class is unique in Fulton County and Georgia. Although it’s part of Georgia’s Career Technical and Agricultural Education program, it’s one of just two middle school construction programs in Fulton schools and one of 20 such programs in the state.
Some education and industry experts argue it’s important to teach such classes in middle school to introduce students to workforce training at an early age. State leaders say Georgia needs more workers trained in construction fields such as carpentry and welding.
Student Nathan Chow enjoys the class, but says it demands precision.
“If you get one measurement wrong, you actually might not know it right away, and it’ll really mess you up later,” he said.
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Construction Ready is a nonprofit that promotes skill-based training and works with the Georgia Department of Education to develop classes like the one at Elkins Pointe. Zach Fields, the group’s vice president of K-12 programs, would like to see more middle school classes like Moffit’s.
“Adults may look at that and say, ‘Why do students need to learn how to use these tools?’ or ‘Hey, that’s more for adult use,’” Fields said. “Students, and children in general, can do a lot more than adults give them credit for … and these types of programs can unlock that creativity and ability by giving students an opportunity in a structured, safe manner.”
More classes in middle and elementary schools are in the works, Fields said. The state Legislature added $1 million this fiscal year to the CTAE budget specifically for construction classes. Construction Ready is working with the Georgia Department of Education to determine which schools will get the new programs.
Students in each grade at Elkins Pointe can opt to take construction as an elective. Sixth graders take an introductory course for nine weeks. Seventh and eighth graders take it for a full semester, or 18 weeks. Moffit teaches about 400 students throughout the year, which is a little less than half of the school’s population.
Moffit, a former computer systems designer, likes teaching middle schoolers. He’s been teaching construction at Elkins Pointe for eight years.
“Middle schoolers get to try things out,” he said. “You don’t get to do that in high school. If you try out for basketball (in high school), you better be doing it all year round already. Middle school doesn’t do that.”
Moffit also wants these young students to be comfortable with the tools they’re using. Initially, he was given devices like circular saws and awls, which were too big and cumbersome for middle schoolers.
“So we had to change all of that and make sure ... the drills we’ve got are the little 9-volt, 12-volt drills,” he said. “They’re not the big ones.”
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Moffit also wants to reduce the learning curve for construction courses his middle school students may take in high school.
“I’m working with them with the tape measure, basic drills, … band saws, very basic stuff,” he said. “When they got to high school before they had to spend a good year … just dealing with those basics.”
Another reason schools and educators find CTAE classes like these appealing is that students enrolled in the programs graduate at a higher rate. The graduation for the state’s CTAE students in 2024 was 97.74%, compared to the overall four-year graduation rate of 85.4%.
Many Elkins Pointe students will attend Roswell High School, which has a robust construction program. Some of Moffit’s students, like Chow, said they probably won’t continue the courses in high school, but still see the value in them.
“I have a lot of other passions, but I do think it’s a very good thing if somebody did want to grow up and do construction,” Chow said. “It’d be (a) very good … steppingstone order to help you on a journey.”
His classmate, Noah Jenkins, doesn’t think he’ll continue construction in high school either.
“Probably not, but I like doing it and it’s fun to build,” he said. “I like construction.”
Fields said that’s still a win. Students may get something out of the course they’re not getting in core classes, like English and math.
“You’re developing leadership and self-confidence and learning that, ‘Hey, I’m good at this; I can make this cut really well,’” he said. “Or, ‘Hey, I know how to put this chair together.’ There’s an empowerment standpoint to it, which will carry across all subject matter areas.”
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