Berkeley Leader

Berkeley County Middle College High School issued the following announcement on February 22.

If it isn’t a full-service auto shop, it comes pretty close.

It has a classroom, but Hanahan High’s auto shop students do most of their learning in the actual shop, which comes equipped with three vehicle lifts, tire machines, air conditioning machines, a brake lathe, assorted hand tools, an upstairs area for students to work on circuits, and more.

“We've got just about everything we need to be a full service shop,” Auto Shop teacher David Van Maanen said. “We’ve got a good bit. The district really takes care of us.”

On Feb. 17, the shop was pretty packed with cars: a couple of students were trying to fix the brakes on a classmate’s truck. Two students have a teacher’s car suspended on a lift. One student is fiddling with some wires on a jeep, with help from school resource officer Wesley Scott. Another group of students are looking under the hood of another truck parked right outside the garage doors.

This is Van Maanen’s Auto Shop 3 class, where students get a lot of “shop” time, and they keep busy working on Hanahan High teachers’ and students’ cars that have been brought in for general maintenance.

February happens to be Career and Technology Education (CTE) Month, a time to raise awareness of the role CTE programs have in readying students for jobs beyond high school.

Van Maanen – also dubbed “Mr. V” by his students – aims to have his students prepared for jobs in the automobile mechanics industry by the time they leave Hanahan High.

Van Maanen went through Hanahan High’s auto shop program himself; he did all three Auto Shop classes and also worked out of a Chevy dealership. He graduated from Hanahan High in 2011 and later took over the program three years ago when his former teacher asked him if he would be interested.

“Experience is the most valuable teacher here,” he said. “I try to teach them how to find information. …The biggest thing that I can give them is how to research things and find answers that they need.”

The students take the lead on fixing cars for the most part, with Van Maanen stepping in every so often to help them out. The biggest tasks they take care of are oil changes and tire rotations, but the Auto Shop 3 students also know how to do brake suspensions, engine and electrical diagnostics and a lot of overall general maintenance.

Students do not typically take on projects that need to be done in a day. Depending on the job, most “customers” who drop off their vehicle end up leaving it overnight – Van Maanen said they recently had a car that they held on to for a couple weeks because the students had to tear down the transmission and replace a bunch of bearings (“We had a good time with that one,” he said). Hanahan High teachers and staff do not get charged for the work but are asked to pay for parts if need be.

A little over a dozen students were in the shop last week; Van Maanen also has a couple of students who have scored positions with Take 5 Oil Change on Rivers Avenue, and that is where they report during class time.

His students can take entry-level Automotive Service Excellence certification tests, which is an industry-recognized certification program that would give his students a boost on their job resumes once they start applying for jobs.

Van Maanen said the main goal is to get the students employed – or at least teach them some skills that will save them some money when they take care of their own cars.

“It’s very rewarding to see…the lightbulb turn on, and to help guide them through some of the same things that I was going through when I was starting on cars,” he said. “Trying to find a job when you’re under 18 is so hard to do at a shop – a lot (of shops) won’t hire unless you’re 18.”

Most of the students in the Auto Shop 3 class are juniors and seniors, and they will bring their own cars in for maintenance. Eleventh-grader Clay McElroy brought in his 2010 GMC Sierra 1500 to bleed the brakes to fix a leak.

McElroy plans to get an internship working on vehicles with Rick Hendricks on Rivers Avenue, with hopes to have his foot in the door of getting a job in the industry by the time he finishes high school. He said he enjoys the opportunity to work on cars and “being able to do what I love.”

In addition to the cars that are brought in for maintenance, students will also occasionally tinker with an old jeep and car parked off to the side of the shop. Eleventh-grader Isaac Wall stayed occupied working on rewiring the radio for the jeep last week.

Wall said working on his brakes is the hardest thing to learn, but he enjoys working on engines. He is hopeful to work at an Amoco service station at some point.

“I always had a passion for cars, even when I was little,” he said.

Seniors Aiden Morris and Alex Fuenffinger said the class keeps them busy with hands-on projects. Both are considering car maintenance as maybe a side job, but appreciate at least knowing how to work on their own cars.

“It’s easy, and it’s actually fun because we have stuff to do all the time,” Fuenffinger said.

Students said the Auto Shop 1 and 2 classes cover a lot of terminology and the basics of car maintenance, like how to work the tire machine, how to replace tires and do oil changes, while Auto Shop 3 goes a lot more in-depth.

 “It’s a good class to have knowledge for the future,” Morris said.

Original source can be found here.