As older, skilled and educated workers retire, the U.S. faces increasing demand for employees with education and training beyond high school. The job market needs more than 5 million such workers in the next seven years, according to a report last month from Georgetown University. In coastal Alabama, there’s a career tech program that’s helping fill the gap.

Sparks shower the concrete floor as 17-year-old Megann Todd practices pipeline welding at Baldwin Preparatory Academy in Loxley, Alabama. The high school senior wears a helmet, gloves, safety goggles, and steel-toed boots while working with a classmate to lift a heavy pipe into position. 

Todd wasn’t always a fan of school, but said, “by the time I graduate, I only need to take my English class, and then I’ll be able to get my associate’s degree in welding.”

Todd and her classmates learn in a sleek, modern building that opened last year. It’s designed to simulate today’s industry with students learning in a real-world work environment. Principal Adam Sealy said they’re role models for a new kind of career tech.

“Years ago, it was, ‘that’s where the bad kids go,’ and now it’s where the motivated kids go,” he said. 

Motivated because students graduate with both workforce certifications and dual enrollment credits from nearby Coastal Alabama Community College, “It is a resume builder that isn’t offered at any of the other schools,” Sealy said.

Nationally, about 2.5 million high school students take some dual enrollment from colleges and universities. But Baldwin Prep is different. Here, industry helps design curriculum, and industry-recognized credentials are embedded into dual enrollment classes.

Some students will go on to college and others directly into the workforce. Either way, the curriculum is designed with South Alabama’s booming job market in mind, said Josh Duplantis, dean of workforce and economic development for Coastal Alabama Community College. 

“We have a lot of apprenticeship programs to where, if it requires a full degree, maybe that student already has 9, 12, 15, 18 credit hours in that thing. So, it actually frees them up to do less school and more learning on the job,” he said.

To prepare for those jobs, students choose from 12 career pathways in fields like health care, manufacturing, aviation, and cybersecurity. A third of the school’s students are low-income, but college credits are free for everyone — compliments of the state of Alabama. Area industry adds extra dollars to school programs through sponsorships.

The return on the investment is an employee who chooses to live here, explained Duplantis. “But also, how do they stay here and develop a career where they can enjoy a wage that supports a family and a quality of life that we want to see them achieve,” he said.

One company counting on those graduates is Novelis. The company manufactures aluminum sheet used to make cans and car parts. It’s building a $4.1 billion plant a short drive from the school.

Plant manager Tori Holt said the career tech school played a role in site selection. “I think Baldwin Prep was like the cherry on top.”

The company has invested heavily in the school and its dual enrollment curriculum.

“We are thinking about tomorrow,” he said. “So, we know for us to be here for that amount of time, we have to make sure that we have a constant flow of talent.”

And Holt predicted these students will enter the labor force with a five-to-seven-year advantage over high school graduates without this dual enrollment experience.

Welding student Megann Todd is counting on that springboard. “After I go into the workforce for maybe five or so years, I want to go over to be a welding instructor,” she said.

With both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree just months away, it’s a plan already in motion.