Harbor Freight Tools for Schools

This Thanksgiving, we are grateful for the teachers who are educating the next generation of skilled trades professionals. Thank you!

This school year, public high school students across the United States will be leading skilled trades-focused projects designed to have a positive impact on their local community. The students will be guided by their teachers, who are all winners of the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence. This year, students will tackle projects including housing for veterans, automotive maintenance access and entrepreneurial fundraising. https://lnkd.in/gB-c6ZCM

When taking over or establishing a new skilled trades program, teachers are rarely left a manual on how to get started. Michigan carpentry teacher Dave Barresi knows this all too well, having moved schools several times throughout his career. For this edition of Teacher’s Edge, Dave shares what he’s learned from setting up an incredible 17 skilled trades programs. https://lnkd.in/gcN5ibuE

The number of 16- to-24-year-olds participating in registered apprenticeship programs increased 120 percent from 2014 to 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Cory Torppa, a grand prize winner of the 2022 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, and his construction students were recently featured in the ACTE Journal. See more about the story in our Newsroom: https://lnkd.in/gZ3A-ktx

This apprenticeship week, we want to celebrate the professionals who are training the next generation of skilled trades workers. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there are over 500,000 active apprentices across the nation.

Since 2017, more than 150 teachers and their programs in 43 states have been named winners of the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence. This year was the first year that teachers in Hawaii, Nevada, and Rhode Island have won. The application period will be open again in the spring of 2025.

This year, the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence awarded a total of $1.5 million in cash prizes to 25 skilled trades teachers in 19 states. See our top five news coverage stories on these excellent educators in our Newsroom. https://lnkd.in/gW8j_r88

If you could reimagine how we prepare learners for careers, what would that look like? We are proud to present the newly modernized National Career Clusters Framework that offers a model to transform how learners learn about and prepare for careers. Through this Framework, we strive for every state to deliver inclusive, industry-driven, and learner-centric experiences not only through Career Technical Education (CTE) but across career-focused education. #CareerClusters https://lnkd.in/emcmUYRi

Congratulations to Brian Sneed, who was named a winner of the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence. Sneed, an automotive teacher at Cordova High School in Cordova, TN, won $35,000 for his school’s program and $15,000 for himself. A total of $1.5 million was awarded today to 25 public high school skilled trades teachers and their programs across the United States. “I have always enjoyed being able to impart information to others, especially as this requires that I master the information first. By preparing to teach, I improve my own understanding,’’ Sneed said.?