"Signing Day" in Alabama is a big day in the media and for student-athletes and their families. It’s the day that announcements are made about high school senior athletes receiving scholarships to play at the next level.
Lesser known but becoming better known is a Signing Day for high school seniors who have completed craft training and are awarded real-world job contracts now.
Alabama high school students who have worked, qualified and earned job offers will be announced at three Alabama campuses of Academy of Craft Training (ACT). The ACT programs are headquartered in Decatur, Birmingham and Mobile, but they reach a large number of school districts surrounding each ACT campus.
A Signing Day ceremony will be held at the Decatur ACT campus on May 1, at the Mobile campus on May 6 and on the Birmingham campus on May 9.
The ceremonies will include the graduating students, their teachers, their new employers and education officials.
Details on the program can be found on Academy of Craft Training's website.
When I was in high school, there was a popular class named “Shop.” Students learned useful skills, mostly for personal use in the home workshop.
The 2025 version of “shop” is unrecognizable to a former student of the old shop class. The Academy of Craft Training prepares students for jobs in Alabama’s booming construction industry – quite a difference from my old shop class.
Trades now included in the craft academy are electrical, HVAC, interior and exterior finishes, welding, and plumbing and pipefitting. Other crafts will be added.
There is a running scoreboard on the academy website.
It now reads as follows:
Participating schools, 72.
Students accepted annually, 750.
Internships to date, 450+.
Total Man Hours, 100,000.
Those totals keep rising.
The Academy of Craft Training is an education/industry partnership between the commercial construction industry and the State of Alabama’s Kindergarten through 12th-grade Career and Technical Education System. Its mission is to recruit, educate, and guide high school students for employment in the construction industry. The goal is to help these students get the education and skills they need to be skilled workers in the industry.
Students have the opportunity to learn directly from construction industry professionals in a workplace-style environment, work as interns with local construction companies, and receive job offers upon graduation – the newly added Signing Day.
The Academy of Craft Training expanded from its original Birmingham headquarters to now include a North Alabama campus in Decatur and a South Alabama campus in Mobile. Other locations may follow.
The academy recruits students from more than 72 Alabama school systems, with team members visiting campuses each autumn. During these visits, 10th and 11th-graders can learn about ACT’s career-building opportunities. They may apply with a short essay.
Once interviews are complete, around 750 students are selected to participate each year.
On May 1, 6, and 9, high school seniors who have completed the program will be awarded job offers from employers in their respective industries.
Alabama’s Academy of Craft Training gives new meaning to the term “on-the-job training.”
JOB TITLE STARTING SALARY EXPERIENCED
CARPENTER $45,000/year $62,000+/year
ELECTRICAL TECHNICIAN $50,000/year $75,000+/year
HVAC TECHNICIAN $50,000/year $80,000+/year
DRYWALL INSTALLER $43,000/year $58,000+/year
WELDER $48,000/year $70,000+/year
PIPEFITTER $52,000/year $85,000+/year
Based on a 40-hour work week with no overtime.
Nearly 70% of college students graduate with student loan debt, averaging $30,000, to repay. ACT offers a different path: high-paying careers, real benefits, and the chance to start earning right out of high school – all without loans.
Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler writes about Alabama’s people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at [email protected].
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