KIRO host ‘thrilled’ about WA high school awarding varsity letters to trade students

After a student and accomplished welder in Snohomish High School’s trade program questioned why trade students can’t earn varsity letters, school officials agreed, making it the only high school in Washington to award varsity letters for skilled trades.

Mike Lewis and Mandi Bossard, fill-in hosts of “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio, agreed with the decision, which sparked a conversation about the depleted workforce in trade jobs and where the issue may have originated.

“I’m thrilled about this. I mean, schools got very focused on being pathways to college, a good thing, I don’t think that was necessarily a bad idea, but when resources became limited, what they did was start eliminating elective courses,” Lewis said. “We didn’t notice for a long time, but a lot of people who are in the trades have begun aging out without replenishment at the bottom end. Those people frequently came from high school shop programs.”

Lewis steered the conversation toward the substantial sums certain trades can earn, noting that plumbers can charge hundreds of dollars for their work.

“If you want a commercial plumber to show up, it’s $500. This is not me complaining about prices, this is me complaining about availability,” Lewis said. “I don’t know if there’s a trade that is feeling like it has a glut of employees. They’re always recruiting; constantly looking for people. Think about what cannot be done by AI. You know what, your plumbing is not going to be done by AI anytime in the future.”

“I love it, especially right now in this job market where we’re seeing mass layoffs,” Mandi responded. “We’re talking about people who have been out of work for years at this point; they just cannot find a replacement for what they were doing, and I love seeing trade work valued.”

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.