As the world changes, so do the needs of the workforce, and some high schools have made it their job to prepare students for this next phase of their lives, whether that be going straight to work or pursuing some other form of education. But similar to how every student has different needs academically, they have different needs career-wise as well.

“[The hub] allows us to reach more students and give students options. That’s what I’m most excited for,” Principal Dr. Daniel “DJ” Johnson said. “With the career pathways, we don’t offer any welding now; students have to go down to Central Campus and get in the welding program. Having a welding program here for our students, between the welding program and our automotive program, that’s going to give us a lot more options that we didn’t have before.”

Central Campus is located in Des Moines, and students who choose to take courses have to allocate time in their schedules for transportation. If students had some of those courses accessible in Ankeny, more may be inclined to take them.

“There’s probably not a single day where I had driven down to Central Campus and not had the thought of, ‘Wow, I really wish I did not have to drive this far.’ Because I probably spent hundreds of dollars on gas,’” senior Max Wardell said. “I must have spent so much money. And if there was a place to take it of the same quality or better quality, then I would obviously take that in a heartbeat over driving there and back every day.” 

One of the many goals for Ankeny’s innovative hub is to offer courses in a variety of career clusters. Currently, Ankeny High School (AHS) does not have courses in the agricultural cluster or the health occupation cluster.

“We wanted to make sure that we had a complete offering [of courses] for our students, but we also wanted to design the building so that it has maximum flexibility, because the job needs of today are going to be different than the job needs of five years from now,” Assistant Superintendent Darin Haack said.

While the layout of the hub includes specific rooms to accommodate hospital beds, there will also be a variety of classrooms that can be easily adapted to fit the future needs of students.

“The primary area of feedback we’re going to see is students deciding on those courses,” Haack said. “It’s the same as it happens now. We add new courses all the time because we’re hearing from students, ‘I really want to do this with my life, [but] I don’t see courses that prepare me for that.’ So we look to build those.”

As students’ interests narrow, some may seek courses with more specification which will allow them to gain credible experience, preparing them for their next steps in life. The Ankeny Community School District (ACSD)  seems to have always emphasized preparing students for a secondary pathway, but where this begins to get more challenging is finding instructors who have the qualifications to teach advanced classes.

“We don’t [currently] have welding, but that is going to be one of the programs. So either one of our teachers here will pick up a welding certification, which I’ve heard that some are willing to do [or] we have to hire someone certified that can teach welding,” Johnson said.

Wardell further explained how, in trades such as welding, it is important that students have teachers with workforce experience,  but he is not too concerned about Ankeny being able to find them.

“I know Ankeny is going to do a good job of finding teachers that have actually been in the workforce,” Wardell said. “That’s another reason Central Campus is really successful, because both my teachers [have experience]. Danny is a welding inspector, and she has been for a long time, and then my other teacher, Chad, is the guy that was actually doing all of the work. Danny knows how to weld but she’s more of the quality control.”

The innovative hub will be located at the south end of the Northview Middle School campus on Ankeny Boulevard. Ankeny Boulevard is a major pathway for the Ankeny Community, meaning many will see the phases of the hub from construction, which will reportedly occur in the spring, to completion around two years after the start date.

“I think [the hub] is going to help center some things within our community because it’s going to be that impactful,” Johnson said.

Both high schools currently benefit from the Northview campus due to the stadium being located there. Orbis is also located on the Northview campus, a project-based program that north and south side students utilize. Project-based learning is nothing new to the ACSD, but as more is implemented, they are learning to adapt, and especially with a project as big as the hub, ACSD faculty, such as Haack, have looked to similar projects for insight.

“One of the things that we found is based on the schedule of how those courses work, they don’t work very well in a 42 or 43 minute period like you have at the high school,” Haack said. “Students tended to spend half a day or a full day at those facilities. And in talking to the people that have been running that, they would recommend that we shuttle students via bus so you don’t have to worry about parking.”

Now that the General Obligation (G.O.) bond has been passed, the ACSD is able to move forward with finalizing the blueprints, and then contractors will be able to bid on the project. As the project moves forward, additional action teams have been created, some are focused on transportation, while others are about courses and programming.

“When I was in Southview and the counselors came in to show us the classes, and they had the list of all the possible classes we could take, I didn’t even know that [welding] was an option until I saw [it] at the bottom of the list,” Wardell said. 

Wardell also explained how opportunities at Central Campus were not talked about often, nor how Orbis presents opportunities that allow students like Wardell to have a paid apprenticeship. Wardell further stated that from what he recalls, he seems to be the only Ankeny student to have an apprenticeship with John Deere in the past four to five years.

“If our goal for high school students is that experiential learning, how do we get that started earlier?” Haack said. “Through middle school and even into elementary school, what kind of courses do we need to have through all of those levels that lead to that experiential learning that they’re having towards the end of high school? And so those action teams are really looking at what kind of courses do we need to provide, what kind of licensure is required in order to teach those courses, [and] how does that fit so a student can kind of map out their courses over their high school or middle school career.”

While there are some students who will accept that their job is to go to school, other students need an explanation; they need to be able to see how school is going to benefit them in their future.

“Not all students just come in doing school because that’s what they’re supposed to do. They struggle with school making sense,” Johnson said. “[If] we do this the right way, this allows us to connect with some of our kids who don’t connect as well with school because they can see the direct impact.”