District 214 buys land so students can build a house

Some District 214 students will have great way to begin their college application essays.

"I built a house."

They'll have to elaborate, but that's the gist of it.

The Northwest Suburban High School District 214 school board recently approved spending $280,000 for a vacant piece of land in Wheeling. Within the next year, a group of high school students will design and build a single-family home at the spot located a block-and-a-half north of Wheeling High School at 517 Russell St., said Jeff Jerdee, director of Education to Careers and Technology.

"Every year, the district looks for reasonably priced land in an established neighborhood for this project," Jerdee said. "We were lucky. Land like that is getting harder and harder to find."

The course, called Practical Architectural Program, is 18 years old. It provides on-site work experience as students build a single-family house. Students will work on the house during school hours and it will be sold to the highest bidder when they're done, Jerdee said.

Between 48 and 60 students throughout the district participate in the program, he said.

Advanced architectural students in the program compete to see who gets to design the house and a panel of experts pick the winner. After the design is chosen, construction begins and usually lasts from Labor Day through Memorial Day, Jerdee said.

"Usually our goal is to get the roof up before the winter," he said.

The students will put up the basic framing, including building the roof and deck. Professionals will help with the heating and air conditioning, plumbing and electrical work. Each company hired must also spend 20 hours showing the students their jobs.

"It's all about teaching," Jerdee said. "If you want to be a carpenter, you should be aware of the other occupations out there."

Typically the homes sell for between $410,000 and $780,000 and the money from the sale goes back to the program, Jerdee said.