Mortenson recently sponsored the Arizona Construction Championships, where students from schools in Queen Creek, Payson and Snowflake competed for bragging rights at Metro Tech High School. The students competed in various areas, such as carpentry, masonry, finish carpentry and electrical. Prizes were donated by industry partners, as were materials like wood, block, wire and nails.

Judges, including Mortenson superintendent Woody Glass, were represented from various trades. One judge was even a former participant in the event!

Excerpt From Expect More Arizona:

Metro Tech High School serves over 1450 students in the urban core of Phoenix, Arizona. Our strategic plan for school improvement builds upon the past and current successes of the school to include focused learning experiences that prepare our students for success in college, career and life. Our data demonstrates that our students can achieve at high levels despite any pre-supposed disadvantages such as living in low income homes and being second language learners. Metro Tech students are primarily Latino (96%), spoke Spanish as their first language (77%), and come from poverty (86%). However, these data are less important than the fact that our students have a 96% attendance rate, a 90% graduation rate, and a drop-out rate less than 1%. In the most recent AIMS test, 85% of our sophomores passed reading and 60% passed math. We are proud of these numbers and know that they reflect all the hard work and commitment of both our students and our staff, along with the support of our family community. We are a Move On When Ready School of Excellence; our academic program is aligned to Common Core under the ACT QualityCore framework. We have received the Beat the Odds Gold Medal, made the NCEA List of Higher Performing Schools, and been cited as a US News and World Reports’ 2012 Bronze medal school.

To read more about Metro Tech, click here.