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Walking through the ACE Academy, it doesn’t feel like a failing school.

The students here say they love their classes, their teachers and the projects they build by hand. The teachers love their students (and their students’ focus), and the small class sizes. There are blueprints and robots spread around, 3-D printers and CAD machines. There’s a buzz like a jobsite down 鈥渙n deck,鈥� where ACE’s high school juniors and seniors learn with real tools alongside real apprentices and real masters.

Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian, and a number of others interviewed this month, say the 鈥淎CE model鈥� should be an inspiration to other trades-focused charter schools, which are badly needed to help address a labor shortage that’s driving up the cost of doing business and stunting the growth of companies.

So why did ACE’s board of directors vote unanimously this month to close the school? Why did it struggle for so long? The answers illustrate what’s frustrating to Oregon educators about getting tax dollars to schools 鈥� especially charter schools 鈥� and what riles businesspeople who work with government.

A lot of disappointment

At the start of the school day Feb. 10, ACE Director Mark Clifford called a school-wide meeting to deliver an announcement he’d feared giving for years. The ACE Academy would fold at the end of the semester. The senior class would be the eighth and final. Juniors would return in the fall to their 鈥渉ome schools,鈥� where it was uncertain whether they’d earn the college credit they’d been promised. There was no plan to reopen.

鈥淚t was disappointing to say the least,鈥� Clifford said.

The teachers had found out only hours earlier. Karli Kyle was upset, but knew as a specialist in advanced math, she’d be able to find another job. But it likely wouldn’t involve teaching such small classes, she said.

鈥淚t’s such a bummer,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are so many kids who just really found their spot here.鈥�

It wasn’t any easier back in her classroom, Kyle said. The kids lamented not being told of the school’s position sooner, so they could have helped. They wanted to email Bill Gates. They asked, 鈥淗ow much do we need?鈥�

$250,000.

鈥淵eah, their GoFundMe didn’t go very far,鈥� Kyle said.

Yudie Lewis, 18, found a home at ACE. She didn’t really connect with her coursework or teachers at her home school, Parkrose, where classes contain upwards of 40 students.

Now she speaks the language of construction, and plans to start a carpentry apprenticeship after graduation. Her favorite teacher is Ms. Hughes 鈥� ACE’s construction instructor, Katie Hughes 鈥� who talks to her 鈥渓ike a friend would.鈥�

鈥�(ACE) honestly changed my whole attitude on high school,鈥� she said. 鈥淵our work here is totally different. They don’t only care about your grades.鈥�

鈥楤ad snowpack’

According to professionals in the building trades, the 1990s are when the U.S. education system started pushing all kids to go to four-year colleges. In Oregon, the decade began with passage of Measure 5, which limits tax funding for education. Ten years later was No Child Left Behind, which didn’t emphasize career education. Shop classes, along with arts, physical education and other electives, were diminished in favor of college prerequisites. In this way, academia is often seen by the building community as damaging its 鈥減ipeline鈥� of skilled workers.

Despite offering well-paying jobs 鈥� and lots of them 鈥� the construction industry has long battled the perception that it’s 鈥渓ow-tech,鈥� and thus unappealing to tech-savvy youth.

Following the turn of the millennium, construction executives needed only look at their employee rosters to see what was coming: far more older workers than younger ones to replace them. The math was simple.

鈥淚t’s sort of like hearing that there’s bad snowpack in the mountains, and you know there’ll be a drought come summer,鈥� said Bart Eberwein, executive vice president of Hoffman Construction. 鈥淲e need a river of construction workers, and this tributary’s gone dry. It’s a bad thing.鈥�

Stakeholders were about two years into planning a trades-focused charter school for Northeast Portland when the housing crash hit, followed by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The construction sector was stung perhaps worse than any other industry. Private work came to a standstill; unemployment rose to 50 percent in places.

This was all at a point when the oldest baby boomers were starting to hit retirement age. Many boomers stayed on the job, while younger workers left the industry for other opportunities.

Getting vocational training back in public schools 鈥� through efforts like ACE 鈥� is just one approach to forging the construction workforce of the future. More conventional efforts include union apprentice and training programs, pre-apprenticeship programs like Northwest College of Construction and Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. and college-level construction management programs, like those at Oregon State University and the Oregon Institute of Technology.

ACE Academy has graduated around 500 students in its eight years. For perspective, to merely keep pace with retirements, close to 4,000 replacements are needed each year in Oregon.

Associated General Contractors spends about $220,000 a year on various workforce development efforts.

鈥淭he challenge with ACE always was that you’re asking school districts to give up a part of their budget to send students outside the school district,鈥� AGC Oregon-Columbia chapter Executive Director Mike Salsgiver said. 鈥淎nd that’s a pretty hard sell, especially in a down economy.鈥�

No worse time

Because charter schools draw money away from their partnering school district with each student who attends, it’s hard enough to establish one in Oregon during boom years. But as one past ACE director has said, the school founders couldn’t have picked a worse time to establish. ACE was founded in 2008 as the United Building Congress Academy of Architecture, Construction and Engineering. The plan was to enroll 500 students, a figure quickly revised to a more realistic 200, then 175.

In a unique arrangement, ACE is funded primarily through state dollars funneled through its four partner districts 鈥� Reynolds, Centennial, Gresham-Barlow and Parkrose. Last year, around $709,000 of the school’s approximately $800,000 budget came from the districts, with the remainder provided by private interests like AGC’s Education Fund. Other contributors have included PGE and Intel, and major Portland building firms like Hoffman and Lease Crutcher Lewis.

In 2011, the four districts agreed to pay equal shares for 175 students. But each is on the hook for about $3,100 per student for unfilled seats. In 2013-14, the districts subsidized ACE to the tune of $120,000.

Clifford even led several revenue-raising efforts with the help of students. They built and sold chicken coops and sheds. A program to build and sell two tiny houses ($45,000 each) has been operating for several years.

A tough decision

Though low and declining enrollment hurt the school throughout its run, one definitive fact instigated its closure: ACE’s landlord, the Pacific Northwest Carpenters Institute, wanted its space back. ACE has leased classrooms and administrative office space, at a discount, since it opened.

But in the time since, construction in Portland has come roaring back. So in a twist of irony, the carpenters union needed to kick the ACE Academy out because there’s so much work to be done.

The ACE board was notified of this eight months ago. The nearest and best option for relocation was Mt. Hood Community College. That plan made it to the conceptual design phase before the plug was pulled because of cost concerns. It turned out that adding high school students to a college triggered greater code requirements, which proved costly. And finding classroom space near well-wired shop space, for a price the academy could afford, proved impossible.

鈥淟ooking at those issues, our partner districts didn’t see us getting there,鈥� said board member Dan Drinkward, operations manager at Hoffman Construction. 鈥淪o we came to the conclusion as a board that it was not viable to continue.鈥�

But the districts aren’t all alike. Enrollment figures show that Reynolds and Parkrose consistently contributed fewer students than Gresham-Barlow and Centennial, which were closer to their targets.

The ACE board is made up of four representatives of partnering businesses, four school district superintendents (representing each school district partner), and one parent who also works in the trades. Following Clifford’s announcement, the board sent letters signed by all members notifying parents and partnering companies.

鈥淲ithout a viable facility and plan for relocation of the school, member school districts shifted their support away from the school,鈥� the letter reads. 鈥淎ll of this led to the tough decision by the Board of Directors to close the school at the end of this school year.鈥�

Meeting minutes of the board of directors, available online, show little hint of conflict in the months leading up to the closure 鈥� meaning tensions described in interviews by board members played out in executive session or were left out of the public record.

What’s certain is that the following week, during the monthly meeting of the Oregon Workforce Development Coalition, several stakeholders pointedly expressed their displeasure with the outcome.

鈥淭o be blunt about it, I think we found out that some of the school districts have lost interest,鈥� said board member Tom Goodhue, Oregon Building Congress’ executive director. 鈥淲hat I’m seeing out there, what I conjecture, is that there’s a pot of money out there, and the districts that we partnered with would rather pocket that money than participate with ACE.鈥�

In Oregon, funding is available to start a charter school. But once it’s up and running, administrators are burdened with keeping enrollment numbers up.

鈥淚 think one of the greatest challenges to charter schools is financial stability over the long term,鈥� said board chairman Jeff Wheeler of PGE. 鈥淲e’ve been somewhat successful with that over the last eight years, but losing our facility and not having another one that was viable really challenged the financial stability of the school.鈥�

A larger problem

What to do next is the 鈥渕illion dollar question,鈥� according to Drinkward.

鈥淲e need people in this business,鈥� he said. 鈥淐raftwork jobs are getting more demanding and more complicated, and getting young people interested in them is one of the reasons we’ve been involved in ACE.鈥�

The labor shortage is already manifesting itself in various ways, Drinkward said. Some of the price escalation for public and private projects is due to a smaller workforce. Many Hoffman subcontractors aren’t able to take on the work they’d like to, meaning Hoffman sometimes has trouble getting the requisite number of bids.

The AGC in Oregon has ramped up efforts to restore career technical education, according to Salsgiver. It’s seen encouraging progress at Portland Public Schools, Salem-Keizer School District and Sherwood School District. PPS’ Franklin High School is being modernized and will feature a large shop.

鈥淚 believe the ACE model absolutely can be effective, but you have to have an agreed-upon partnership that takes a long view,鈥� Salsgiver said.

Talking this month to the Oregon Construction Workforce Coalition, Tom Goodhue of the Oregon Building Congress said an important lesson from the ACE Academy should be that no two high schools are the same.

鈥淲here we as businesspeople would like to see effort and return on investment, that’s not necessarily how schools approach what we’re trying to do,鈥� he said.

Brad Avakian, head of Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industry, thinks it should start with middle schools. He helped establish a grant fund in the state Department of Education to bring back modern shop classes to middle and high schools. To date, 340 schools have added programs, he said.

鈥淚 think ACE was successful in that regard,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou know, 500 kids that graduated there in its lifespan and it moved a number of them toward the trades. I think we need more places like ACE.鈥�