CRAIG, CO — Moffat County School District is the proud recipient of a new grant from Explore the Trades and Ferguson. This grant will provide students at Craig Middle School with a Skills Lab to give students the opportunity to explore the plumbing trade.
The “Explore the Trades Skills Lab, Built by Ferguson,” equipment grants were announced today, May 7, 2025, in celebration of National Skilled Trades Day. CMS was one of just eleven schools nationwide to be awarded the grant.
Moffat County School District has increased its focus on career and technical education in recent years, answering the call of its local community to elevate trades and other career-necessary skills as a viable and important pathway for its students. This opportunity expands on that focus.
This grant will provide CMS students with tools and materials necessary to participate in the exploration of plumbing skills in the middle school’s Agriculture, Engineering, Skills and Trades classes. These hands-on classes for all grade levels already teaches construction, design, engineering, plant science, animal science, and energy skills. Now the class will incorporate this additional advanced trade into its students’ learning.
This represents a continued focus from Moffat County School District, especially at the secondary level, on providing broad opportunities for students to learn skills that will help them in many different potential career avenues, from core academics to sciences to trades. From elementary robotics teams and the Project Lead the Way STEM curriculum to the district's ongoing support of FFA and 4H, to CMS’s Agriculture, Engineer, Skills and Trades classes, to Moffat County High School’s high-quality and diverse agriculture and trades classes, to the high school’s decorated FBLA and DECA teams and business programming, Moffat County School District continues to provide cross-disciplinary opportunities for students to incorporate and practice math skills, reading comprehension, writing skills, science knowledge, and business acumen as they apply those to hands-on trades-based learning.
This grant amplifies the district’s ability to provide students opportunities for exposure to potential career pathways, not to mention useful household skills for people of all professions. Students who love what they learn in this class and others have further opportunities at Moffat County High School to develop these skills and work with actual employers in the community to develop deeper knowledge and more career and post-secondary school preparation.
MCSD is grateful to Ferguson and the Explore the Trades foundation for this generous grant and for the opportunity it provides our students.
The Explore the Trades press release can be found here: https://explorethetrades.org/explore-the-trades-skills-lab/