Aspen High School celebrates student-built tiny home
Pam Fisher/Courtesy photo
Around 30 teachers, community members, parents, and stakeholders gathered on Wednesday at Aspen High School to celebrate the completion of the high school’s student-built tiny home.
Beginning in the fall of 2023, Aspen High School students worked with Woodshop Teacher John Fisher, who is in his 55th year teaching at the school, to build the home. The process of building the tiny home gave students the opportunity to pursue the trades, something Fisher emphasizes in education.
“Because not all kids are going on to college, and we need trades people,” he said. “There are several kids that indicated that part of the reason they stayed in school was to take the hands-on classes.”
He estimated that 23 students contributed to the roughly 200-square-foot build, which was completed this past spring. The design featured a pitched roof, asphalt shingles, 12 windows, and a loft. The students used lumber, wood siding, dry wall, and spray foam insulation for the build, Fisher said.
“You don’t just learn about skilled trades in (Fisher’s) class,” said Mark Gregory, director of the Career and Technical Education (CTE) department of Colorado River Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES). “You learn about life.”
Colorado River BOCES’ CTE department financed initial materials for the project by procuring state funding, Gregory said.
The nonprofit’s contribution extends beyond the Aspen School District, helping school districts around the state finance tiny home projects. Once districts finish a tiny home build, the nonprofit sells the tiny home — either to the district itself or to an independent buyer — before they use the profits to buy the next set of materials for another student-led project, he said.
He added that students can get school credit or building credentials, including an OSHA 10 — a training certificate designed to improve individuals’ construction safety awareness and practice — by participating in a tiny-home build.
“Lots of times, businesses would hire somebody and then have to train them to get this,” Gregory said of the credentials. “So it makes the students who have it in high school more marketable in the workforce because they already have it.”
He added that student-led tiny home projects both prepare students for what’s next in their careers and help solve the housing crisis.
“This is a project that allows them to bring all their skills onto a product that is going to make them feel good,” he said, “and help a community with housing problems.”
The tiny-home project could be one of many for Aspen High School students. They have already begun working on their next build.
“It’s almost going to be twice as big,” Gregory said.
Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.
Aspen School District discusses funding, chronic absences
Aspen School District’s Board of Education held its first public meeting of the month Wednesday with a particular focus on an annual report for student learning at the Aspen Community School, district-level attendance trends involving chronic absenteeism and capital allocation following the recently approved mill levy override.