A Note from our Superintendent

Larry Francois, Anacortes

In yet another sign of our continued return to post-pandemic normalcy, I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Washington Apprenticeship Vocational Education (WAVE) Tour hosted at the North Puget Sound Carpenter Training Center in Burlington. Started in 2007, the WAVE Tour provides the opportunity for high school students to be introduced to multiple construction trades through engaging, hands-on experiences. After a three-year absence due to COVID, students from over 25 schools and programs across the NWESD region attended this year. Staff from the Career Connect Washington NW Regional Network, hosted at the NWESD, organized a coalition of industry and workforce development partners to sponsor this year’s tour.

Engaging with these partners during the tour, I found myself in conversations I’ve had many times before about the perception – or reality – that the trades are not valued and promoted as they could or should be in our schools. As anyone, like me, who has engaged in a construction or remodel project in recent years can attest – much less major public works projects – it can be frustratingly hard to find skilled, capable, and reliable trades people. The shortages and needs exist in just about every field, and these are highly skilled and well-compensated positions with multiple avenues for career development and advancement.

Is it true that the trades are not validated and promoted in our schools? I suspect there is not a clear answer to that. But I can say that over my 33-year career, including eight years as superintendent in a generally recognized high performing suburban school district, I have experienced the unwritten or unspoken diminishment of a skilled trades pathway for students in favor of the prioritization of pathways for students to higher education, typically four-year college or university. Even pathways to two-year institutions in non-trades areas are often subtly treated as lesser choices for students.

While these are broad generalizations not reflective of all school communities, my experience suggests that they are real and accurate in many. I believe the reasons are several. One has to do with graduation requirements. Over my career I’ve witnessed oscillations in graduations requirements that have sought to made four-year college entrance requirements the standard for all students, and times when graduation requirements have more flexibly recognized different pathways to future success more conducive to a skilled trades route. Two, in many communities there are spoken or unspoken expectations from parents and taxpayers that the school system prepare all students for fouryear college or university as the default. Local schools are naturally responsive to such sentiments. Three, I believe there is a general lack of understanding about what a modern career in the skilled trades entails, the kind of lifestyle it can support, and how the trades have evolved in recent decades from perceptions of low skilled, low wage, low opportunity career choices to the realities of exactly the opposite.

At the NWESD, we are slowly growing our footprint and influence to promote, support, and help build career pathways in the skilled trades across our region. This involves initial exposure to students in the elementary years to exploration in the middle school years to further exploration, preparation, and post-secondary connection to continued training, apprenticeship, and workforce development opportunities in the high school years. We believe the skilled trades are high demand, viable, and exciting futures for students just as much – and in many cases more so – than a college or university pathway.

I encourage you to learn more about our efforts by visiting the Career Connected Learning section of our website at I encourage you to learn more about our efforts by visiting the Career Connected Learning section of our website at www.nwesd.org/ccl.

Larry Francois NWESD Superintendent