Think your homework was tough? In the UP, students had to build a house

• Students in the Copper Country Intermediate School District’s construction trades program built a house this school year
• The build was supposed to take two years but, with Houghton-area contractors’ help, the students built it in one
• Students earn real-life experience that can land them a job even while they’re still in high school

For sale: A 1,650-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bathroom home with a three-stall attached garage and a built-in electric sauna in one of Houghton’s most desirable neighborhoods.

Asking price: $525,000.

Added bonus: Buying the home will help train the workforce of Michigan’s future.

That’s because a dozen students in the Upper Peninsula’s Copper Country Intermediate School District’s career tech program spent the last year building the home from the foundation up with the help of local contractors. 

The program follows ones in Kent County , Muskegon, Calhoun County and  Ann Arbor Public Schools, which has built houses since 1970. In the UP alone, builds are underway in Escanaba and Manistique, and officials hope that all districts there will eventually offer student home-building programs, said Marty Fittante, CEO of InvestUP, an economic development firm that invests in the student builds.

“Our schools have focused a lot on paperwork, tests, and that's how you measure success, but the real world's not that way,” Mark Valchine, the lead instructor on the Ann Arbor home builds, said in an email to Bridge. 

“Building the house is the vessel that we use to teach them life lessons, and the life lessons make them stronger and make them successful when they leave us."

Profits from the Houghton house will fund future builds, as both the construction industry and trade schools are booming.

Across the country, 302,000 people hired into the construction industry in March, not enough to replace the 313,000 people who left the industry, many through retirement, according to the latest data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Junior Alecia Aho, 17, was the only female student in the Copper Country ISD house-building class. She said she’s now strongly considering a career in construction. 

“I didn’t know how to build a house at all, but now, after this class, I have learned so much that will help me in the future,” she said.

‘Let’s build a house’

The idea for the house project in Houghton came after the ISD hired Corey Soumis as its career tech director in August 2023. One of his first acts in his new role was visiting Andy Moyle, a local contractor, to talk about ways Soumis could give the juniors and seniors in his construction class hands-on experience. 

The students had built sheds and a tiny house. Soumis wanted something more.

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“And I said, ‘Let’s build a house,’ and he said, ‘Good idea,’” Moyle told Bridge Michigan. “He was waiting for somebody to say something like that, and I was just the first one to say it.”

That fall, Moyle donated a lot. They found a cement contractor who donated cement and other contractors donated their time and poured a foundation that spring. 

The following fall, the dozen students in the construction program got to work erecting a home on top of that foundation. Numerous local contractors donated supplies or sold supplies at deep discounts and donated their time to work with the students.

“Contractors didn’t just come in and do all the work,” Moyle said. “They provided foremen to teach the kids. The kids did the bulk of the work under the guided supervision of the professionals.”

Marquette-based economic development firm InvestUP caught wind of the project and, through its BuildUP program, provided the district with an interest-free, $200,000 loan to fund the project.

In fall 2024, Soumis and Moyle figured it would take the kids two years to get the house ready for the market.

Instead, through the numerous partnerships with local contractors, “we took a whole year off the timeline,” Moyle said.

‘There’s such a need’

Steve Aho, Alecia Aho’s father, got to experience the home build from under many hats.

First, as a parent watching his daughter blossom. 

Second, as a former educator — he helped establish Copper Island Academy, a charter school centered on hands-on learning — to see the value in what the kids learned during the build. 

Finally, as a professional — he now works for Moyle in real estate and development and helped orchestrate the home build — to see the potential for future trades workers or construction managers, project managers or real estate developers.  

“There’s such a need in not just our local community, here, but all over for the skilled trades,” Steve Aho said. “There is room for all of those who are college-bound, as well as those who can really make a strong living just by going out and doing something in the skilled trades areas.”

The construction class’s dozen students, who came to the ISD’s career center from nine districts, worked on the home from 8 a.m. to noon every day with a half-hour break. The work exposed them to every aspect of the build, from blueprints through putting the backsplash up in the kitchen. 

Kids with particular aptitude and interest could also join a work study program through which they spent two hours a day working with local contractors in the contractors’ offices.

Moyle said he’s recruited a half-dozen kids this school year.

“We know what kind of work ethic they have,” Moyle said.

“You’re not going to learn everything and be a professional in one home build … but this is an excellent, excellent base that helps our local contractors,” Soumis said.

Alecia Ahoe is in a work study program in Moyle’s office. She worked with one of Moyle’s employees to pick out all the finishing touches for the home, from door knobs to cabinetry.

“I think it’s really important and I’ve learned so many skills,” she said. “I learned a lot and it’s fun to be able to work and be outside and gain the experience during my school.”

‘The career-creating business’

Next school year, Soumis expects to have nearly 40 students and the construction class will be split into two classes. 

That will allow Copper Country ISD to build two homes simultaneously: one in Hancock and the other in L’Anse. 

Soumis said the district still has a few invoices they’re waiting for, but he expects the district will make a good profit after paying all the invoices. BuildUP gave the ISD another $200,000, interest-free loan toward the L’Anse build and, rather than asking for repayment of the $200,000 given for the Houghton build, BuildUP will allow the ISD to roll that money into the Hancock build, Fittante, the InvestUP CEO, said.

Moyle said the ultimate goal is to push construction trades programs into earlier and earlier grades. While previously juniors and seniors built sheds, now they’ll build houses. Freshmen and sophomores who originally just learned the basics will build sheds. Middle schoolers can start learning the basics.

“We’re trying to train the next tradespeople on an actual home build,” Soumis said. “We’re not in the homebuilding business. We’re in the training business and the career-creating business.”