College isn't for everyone. An ABQ high school offers alternative pathways.

On Wednesdays, we wear safety goggles.

An empty and quiet campus near Downtown Albuquerque quickly turned into a rush of activity as some students scrambled to get on the right bus to get to their internships and others donned safety gear to continue sanding ongoing projects in their woodworking class.

It’s a pretty typical Wednesday at ACE Leadership High School, 1240 Bellamah NW.

ACE is an Albuquerque public charter school that takes career technical education to the next level, dedicating one day every school week just to work-based learning and, eventually for older students, paid internships.

ACE stands for architecture, construction and engineering, which the school focuses on. It also allows students pathways toward more individual interests, like car mechanics and makeup artistry.

“Whatever it is that they want, or they're interested in, we try to make it work,” assistant principal Matthew Salas said.

There are 220 students enrolled in ACE’s day program, the traditional high school experience, and another 80 enrolled in the school’s evening program, an opportunity for 18-22 year olds to get a high school degree.

Eighteen full-time teachers and another seven or eight contractors — retirees or active workers in different fields — teach the hands-on learning at the school.

Salas, also the director of community engagement, is helping teach a welding group next quarter, pulling from his high school experience in the trade. The school’s maintenance worker, with around a decade of experience in the plumbing field, has taught the plumbing courses.

“It’s all hands on deck, is what we say,” Salas said. “Everybody’s doing something.”

The school also has a community model and hosts classes on the weekends the public can attend.

Work-based learning Wednesdays

ACE offers more traditional learning four out of five days of the week, though the education remains hands-on and is oriented toward projects.

Wednesdays are different for students depending on their grade and experience levels. Newer students start out on campus with the ACE workshops, then go on to do volunteer work, shadow different jobs in the field and, finally, participate in capstone internships.

Salas said the internships generally pay $15 an hour, something students look forward to. The job shadowing comes with a $250 stipend for four to seven weeks of participation, he said.

“They know that they're eventually going to get off campus. They know they're eventually going to get paid,” Salas said. “It's an incentive.”

Salas added that the school offers more technical career training, too, something that came up when teachers found out a lot of students didn’t have bank accounts.

He said the school is working to develop an alumni program to start tracking progress of graduates, like who stays with their internships full time after graduation.

Freshman Ayana Vigil, donning safety goggles, carefully handled machinery to sand a box students were making in woodworking to get a better handle on basic skills. Loud sanders roared around her.

Being at ACE is a step up from the more traditional middle school she went to.

“It’s hard for me to sit still,” she said.

The students aren’t allowed to have their phones on Wednesdays, either depositing them into boxes before class starts or keeping them in their cars.

Vigil is still new to exploring all the career options but said she’s particularly interested in 3D printing, something she’ll get to learn more about later on in the year.

Freshman Jaquelynn Hunter joined ACE in September and also said it’s a lot better than other schools. She wants to get into welding.

“They make the work fun,” Hunter said.

Larry Geusz, now retired, was a carpenter for 45 years and teaches carpentry at ACE as a contractor. He didn't think he'd enjoy teaching as much as he does.

Geusz said kids come in really excited to learn and do the work. He said he has three or four students that really excel in woodworking, and one of his favorite parts about teaching at ACE is “when you get that kid that just gets it.”

When one student thanked him for teaching them recently, Geusz said he told him, “‘I'll teach you as much as you want to learn. Whatever you're willing to learn, I will teach you.’”

In a quieter environment outside, students worked with regular and power tools in building and construction courses.

Sophomore Samuel Montoya worked with freshman Dietrick Riewe to build wooden walls for a mock project other students would later practice using power tools on.

Riewe said it’s a lot different from other schools. Montoya added that it’s better, though, and the instructors offer extra help to the students to make sure they’re where they need to be educationally.

“There's a genuine care for you to succeed,” Montoya said.

Pioneering CTE

There still aren’t many public education institutes focused specifically on career-technical education in New Mexico, though it’s become a much more prominent pathway in recent years.

Salas said ACE, which opened in 2009, was modeled after another pilot CTE school in the state and now many other CTE schools come to visit the campus, taking a look at things like how the school is staffed or how credits work.

When Salas first started teaching 14 years ago, he said it was all about testing scores and getting kids to college. He said it’s so different now.

“You can see the trend now — college is not for everyone, and it's expensive,” he said.

ACE helps students who want to go to college get there, Salas added, though most students enrolled plan to go directly into the workforce or pursue internships after graduation.

ACE work-based learning program manager Julie Jaynes said the outcomes from the hands-on education are impossible to reproduce in a traditional, lecture-based classroom setting.

“Project-based learning is what the school was built on,” Jaynes said. “It was designed that way.”

As students rushed off from their morning meeting — something to imitate a foreman’s presentation before workdays — Salas answered radio calls with questions about which vehicles would be transporting students that day and where late students could be picked up.

“It’s just troubleshooting every day,” he said.

It’s just like what happens at a job, Salas said. He said the school tells its students work requires adaptation and flexibility.

ACE has plans to expand.

Salas said there’s a waiting list to get into the school, since maximum student capacity is capped at 310. It allows more individualistic learning and smaller class or program sizes.

ACE plans to get started next year on its expansion into a neighboring building it recently obtained, which will allow for additional student enrollment and additional instructors.

Students already enrolled in the school will actually work on the expansion.

“We’re really proud of this,” Salas said, looking over the student-made projects that scattered the outdoor project area.