A Constructive Way to Help Teens at Risk : Teacher Shows Youths They Can Have a Brighter Future by Learning How to Build

Thanks to an aggressive teacher, a worthwhile state program and businesses willing to help out, southern Orange County is getting some buildings it needs and teen-agers are being steered away from bad influences and toward productive work.

The teacher is Michael Beekman, who gets high marks from students and other teachers for his construction-industry classes at San Clemente and Capistrano Valley high schools.

Beekman’s classes are part of the Regional Occupational Program, a state curriculum administered through county education departments and local schools. The program is a common-sense acknowledgment that not every high school student wants to go to college.

Even some of those who do want higher education would like a marketable skill as well.

Beekman also seeks out youths headed for trouble and offers them instruction in construction skills. Because he is a reserve deputy in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, meeting students who are at risk, or already facing charges, is not difficult.

One, Octavio Carillo, was 17 when he and his friends were arrested a year ago by Beekman and other deputies for allegedly beating some youths in a gang dispute. Carillo said Beekman “just sat down and started talking to us,” selling his classes as a way to get a job skill and get off the streets.

Carillo signed up, learned how to handle a hammer, cut lumber and use mathematics to design structures. He helped build a sheriff’s kiosk on the San Clemente Pier and some devices used in training dogs for search and rescue work. The once-troubled teen-ager stayed in school, graduated and enrolled in community college.

Carillo stands as an example to other youths at risk of taking dangerous paths. There are adults willing and able to help and businesses ready to donate materials. And there are students who have accepted a helping hand to improve their lives.