PRAIRIE DU SAC, Wis. — A new high school manufacturing lab is giving students the opportunity to fill workforce gaps.

What You Need To Know

  • A new lab opened at Sauk Prairie High School 

  • After a decade of development, it focuses on agriculture, manufacturing and health care 

  • It was partially made possible by a $2.4 million WEDC grant 

  • The lab is also open to the community 

Sauk Prairie High School staff have been talking about a new lab for a decade, according to Superintendent Jeff Wright.

“We found that the equipment that we were teaching students on was incredibly out of date,” Wright said. “We have manufacturers who went to high school here 40 years ago, who saw that we were using the exact same equipment to teach students today as we were when they were in school.”

Wright said Sauk Prairie has more high schoolers going into apprenticeships than any other in CESA 5, a region of the state that covers 35 school districts. With shortages across many fields, the students could soon help fill gaps in agriculture, manufacturing and health care fields using their training.

“We have so many students using our advanced manufacturing spaces right now that our teachers are actually teaching an extra class,” Wright said.

The spaces stretches for thousands of square feet. The project was made possible by a $2.4 million grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. That money allowed the district to open the space to everyone.

“Not only are we making these spaces available to our students, we’re also making them available to our community members,” Wright said. “Our first phlebotomy certification class that took place last winter had half of our students making up the enrollment, and half members of the community that were looking for some new skill to bring into a new job.”

Not every student in woodworking, or welding, or screen printing wants a career in that field. Inspired by her two younger siblings, sophomore Ariana Dominguez dreams of opening a museum for children on the spectrum.

“I’m going to need to be doing a lot of different things,” she said. “Instead of hiring someone to put the metal together, I’m deciding to learn about it now, so I can be able to do it in the future.”

Wright said the school hopes to welcome even more people into the space in the future.

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