Big Lake High School celebrated its annual Youth Apprenticeship Signing Day Tuesday in the Big Lake High School auditorium. 

Eleven BLHS students  were introduced along with their business partners and parents. The Youth Apprenticeship students and businesses they’ve paired up with are: Bailey Muehlbauer - Agriculture at Iron Shoe Farms; Caleb Kvilhaug - Diesel Technician at GATR Truck Center; Natalie Ulven - Manufacturing at Lisi Medical Remmele; Broden Johns - Manufacturing at Lisi Medical Remmele; Shelby Baufield - Animal Science at Big Lake Area Veterinary Hospital; Jaxyn Tschritter - Cabinetmaking at McChesney Cabinets; Lilliana St. Jean - Early Childhood Education at Big Lake ECFE; Johnathan Levreau - Agriculture at Minnesota Native Landscapes; Levi Rengel - Agriculture at Minnesota Native Landscapes; Emily Lemire - Healthcare at St. Benedict’s Community; Westin Christian - Diesel Technician at New Look Contracting.

Big Lake High School is an award-winning College and Career Readiness school. They strive to provide opportunities for all students to identify career interests and skills by providing connections to industry professionals and opportunities to experience career interests first hand. 

Big Lake Schools’ motto is Career by Choice, rather than a career by chance. With this motto in mind they have developed what they call the 3E model which is unique to Big Lake Schools.

EEE Model

The first “E” is Exposure. The focus is to expose students to as many different career opportunities as possible. 

The second “E” is Exploration. Students get a chance to dive deeper into career pathways, visit businesses around the community, tour area colleges as well as take part in hands-on experiences. 

The final “E” is the capstone, Experience. Students learn the practical and theoretical aspects of a highly skilled occupation while working on the job, receiving high school credit, and earning a wage through employment as a Big Lake High School Youth Apprentice.

They recognize the commitment between students and employers with this signing day event. A celebration for the students who decided to invest in their future, their parents for supporting them throughout their education, and the partnering businesses for investing in students to address the needs of today’s workforce.

Through Youth Apprenticeship, classrooms extend beyond the school walls. These students leave the building to attend REAL (Relevant Experience Apprenticeship Learning) class at their place of employment. The youth apprentice model is governed by an industry recognized checklist of tasks that YAs will learn through real world work experience. These are relevant, high tech, industry current career based learning experiences.

Big Lake High School is very proud to provide these experiences. They are proud of the partnerships that have been cultivated with business and industry. Most of all they are proud of these students that made this commitment to their future.