This story was written by Lia Salvatierra, our new Education Reporter. Find more of Lia’s reporting here. Do you have an NKY education story? Email lsalvatierra@linknky.com.
Campbell County Middle School seventh grader Bentley Green and his construction crew hot glued together popsicle sticks to create a trestle bridge of triangles — a shape known for its structural strength.
It’s the second year he’s taken the middle school’s construction class because he wanted to learn more about his dad’s industry.
Last year, his class built a model house; now they’re building bridges, and later in the year they’ll build a wall with insulation, electricity and plumbed toilets.
Though Green hasn’t decided if he wants to work in construction after school, he’s enjoyed seeing math work in the real world, like the importance of taking good measurements.
“Even if a little measurement is off, it could ruin the entire thing,” Green said.
What started as an after-school construction club in Campbell County five years ago has become ground zero for a successful middle school construction curriculum that’s rolling out in more Northern Kentucky districts.
TradesNKY, the nonprofit behind the middle school curriculum and a growing K-12 pathway for the trades, emerged as a solution to a shortage of skilled trades workers in Northern Kentucky.
Founders Phil Griffin, president and CEO of Cold Spring-based AnyWeather Companies and Brandon and Sara Bray, owners of Alexandria-based Bray Construction Services, envisioned a way to prepare a workforce of students equipped to work in the trades after encountering their own labor shortfalls.
Griffin, a member of the Campbell County School Board of Education, was also driven to create an engaging curriculum inspired by his own challenges in school.
“When I was a kid, I loved to build, but as I started school, it was hard for me to sit in a classroom all day long. I wasn’t unable to learn; I just didn’t learn well in the system as it was. I think there are a lot of young people out there who go through the same thing,” he said.
The trio of founders partnered with the district to launch a club and, in 2023, a nine-week pilot curriculum.
Since then, the pilot has grown into a full-fledged three-year curriculum geared at strengthening applied math skills and introducing students to careers including carpentry, electrical, HVAC, masonry and plumbing.
As of this school year, a total of eight Northern Kentucky middle schools have adopted the TradesNKY construction curriculum: Holmes Middle School, all four middle schools at Kenton County Schools, Holy Cross Elementary School and Zion Christian Academy.
Starting in 2025, TradesNKY also started developing more “pathways” for careers other than construction facing labor shortages, including manufacturing, transportation and logistics, utilities and energy and public safety.
TradesNKY doesn’t have a separate curriculum for those pathways, but is partnering with industry leaders to prepare students for those fields through things like career fairs.
Success in Campbell County
In Campbell County, Noah Wirth runs his construction classroom like a real job site.
Most students are laborers, while others take turns working as Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors, foremen and superintendents. Students earn “salaries” for those positions and can be “fined” if they don’t follow safety rules. At the end of the year, Wirth rewards his highest earning students.
Though it’s not an official part of the TradesNKY curriculum, Wirth came up with the simulation model to help manage the classroom after his first year teaching.
Wirth, who has a degree in construction management from Northern Kentucky University, happened upon the open teaching position after leaving his job due to an accident on site.
His class, available to sixth through eighth graders, is one of the middle school’s most popular exploratory electives. Campbell County Schools prides itself on structuring electives around career pathways to prepare students for life after graduation as early as middle school. Before TradesNKY, there was no standardized curriculum available for construction in middle school, according to the nonprofit.
Building in Math, undercover
Wirth said most students who opt into his elective don’t realize how much math they’re about to learn. It’s a skill Wirth knows is lacking on construction sites, down to things like reading fractions on a tape measure.
“There’s a lot of people that are in the field right now that say they have 26 and ‘nine tick marks,’ or something like that, when they’re reading a tape measure,” Wirth said.
But Wirth has seen his students, especially those who never liked or had an aptitude for math, come away as stronger mathematicians. “I joke with the kids. I say ‘We’re having math class today,’” he said.
He even teaches the kids how to use the Pythagorean theorem before they learn what it’s called in their other math classes.
He also recalled one student who was struggling to understand fractions, finally connecting the dots during his class.
“The kid raised his hand. He’s like, “Mr. Wirth, I really like, I understand it now,’” he said.
Impact in numbers
The impact of TradesNKY’s curriculum on academics at Campbell County Schools is already appearing in data.
Of all 8th graders enrolled in construction last spring, nearly 78% met or exceeded their anticipated “growth” for state testing. That class was also the first to graduate to high school with three full years of TradesNKY curriculum.
Campbell County High School’s ninth-grade carpentry teacher reported a big jump this year with students passing a beginning-of-the-year pre-assessment. Historically, he’s seen an average pre-assessment passing rate of 40%, but this year that rate increased to 97%.
Campbell County Middle School Principal Tim Mosley said the program is also a powerful way for students to take ownership of their learning.
“There’s kids that maybe don’t necessarily know what they want out of school. This provides some opportunities,” he said.
