Eastmont High School student Garrett Hewitt focuses on his welding project during class. This CTE program gives students hands-on experience with skills they can carry into future careers.
If you think “metal shop” is a thing of the past, think again. At Eastmont High School, students in David Branham’s Welding and Machining courses are still learning the same hands-on skills that once defined shop class, only now with modern equipment, updated safety standards, and career-ready applications.
Branham, a ten-year veteran teacher at Eastmont, teaches within the district’s Career & Technical Education (CTE) program, which provides students with courses that combine academic knowledge with technical training and real-world experience. In his classes, students wear welding helmets and safety gear, and use tools ranging from manual mills and CNC machines to torches and forges.
“All the equipment you see here is the exact same you’ll see in the industry in our valley,” Branham said. “If our students walk into Pacific Aerospace one day for an interview, it’s going to be the same. It’s easy for our students to transfer from our program into those shops…they’re going to be prepared.”
These Eastmont courses (Metals, Machining, and Welding) blend technical training with problem solving. Students practice blueprint reading, machining, and fabrication processes that connect directly to careers in manufacturing, welding and soldering, aerospace, and engineering.
It’s also about the environment. “I fell in love with this atmosphere,” said sophomore Garrett Hewitt, who chose the class after hearing about it from his sister. And it’s easy to see why: not every high school class takes place in an expansive shop bay filled with the crackle of welding torches, the hum of machines, and the sparks of steel meeting fire.
But inside that shop, Eastmont students aren’t just learning how to weld or cut metal. They’re building confidence, competence, and real-world skills that carry them beyond high school. From the shop classes you remember to the career pathways of today, Eastmont is keeping traditions alive while preparing students for the future.
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