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1:34 AM / Monday February 10, 2025

2 Jun 2024

Future perfect

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June 2, 2024 Category: Local Posted by:

The students from Benjamin Franklin High School honored by Philadelphia City Council on Thursday illustrate the talent for construction that’s here.

By Denise Clay-Murray

One of the things that the Philadelphia Branch NAACP is slated to do as part of their partnership with the builders of the proposed 76 Place is find and connect potential construction workers with opportunities to learn the building trades.

PHOTO: Office of the City Council President

Once they learn this trades, they would be connected with 76 Devcorp for the purpose of helping to construct the new stadium. They’d also be paid the kind of handsome wages associated with a building trade.

On Thursday, Philadelphia City Council honored the students of Benjamin Frankllin High School’s Building Trades and Property Maintenance Program for having a 100% passing rate on their National Occupational Competency Testing Exam. While most of the students who came to Council were carpentry students, all of the students in the program had passed the exam.

Students in the program are taught all of the building trades, something that’s important for a city where there’s always some sort of construction going on.

In a city where economic opportunities are important, programs like Ben Franklin’s are important and deserve their moment in the sun, said Councilmember Jeffery Young, the sponsor of the resolution.

“These students are being trained with a skill that they will have for the rest of their lives, and they’ll be able to utilize those skills to move on to many different vocations if they choose,” Young said. “So, I want to put it out there to the building trades. You should use Ben Franklin as a feeder school for all of your apprenticeship programs.”

As part of the program, the students learn basics and tools of the building trades, as well as such things as plumbing and carpentry. These students are also given training and can earn certificates in construction safety through OSHA. There are also pre-apprenticeship opportunities for the students.

While 100% of the students have passed the test, what they do once they get the jobs they’ve trained for is even more impressive, said Ronald Sizer, the school’s Precision Machine instructor.

“You’ve heard 100% a lot today, but I want to say that we also have a 100% retention rate,” he said. “Everybody we send out to work is still at their jobs.”

Khailiah Canada, the school’s principal, praised the students for their efforts.

“I’m excited for my students,” she said. “They’re going to be doing great things. Great things do come out of public high schools.”

It’s nice to see students in the Philadelphia School District get their moment in the sun during a City Council session, especially when those moments in the sun are often ignored.

But I hope that the folks at the Building Trades are keeping an eye out for the young men and women in the School District of Philadelphia’s vocational programs.

It would be nice for some of the workers on the City’s construction projects lived near the Broad Street Subway or a SEPTA bus route instead of across the bridge or in the suburbs.

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