Masonry Shop Available to Class of 2026

By: James Roberts

The new masonry shop was added to Kaynor Technical High School in 2022 and the new teacher who teaches it is named Mr. Christopher Marks.

"Masonry is about stone, brick, and tile laying, using concrete, and construction" said Mr. Christopher Marks.

“Work ethic is the most important thing, but you should also have good hand-eye coordination. And for brick laying or construction you should have an artistic eye.”

According to Marks after graduating from the masonry shop students can "get a job as a bricklayer, a stone mason, a tile setter, and a construction manager or a construction estimator."

All of the jobs have different requirements that the masonry shop teaches such as learning to put down concrete properly and use the correct mortar mixture. Or the construction manager who needs a good eye for building and needs to be good with planning.

"I met the instructor and he seems well informed” said Mr. Daniel Oleksiw.

“I think it’s an amazing new opportunity to give students a new hands-on opportunity, and it's unique because it's not like other shops we have” said Mrs. Devan Lavorgna.

"We learned how to cement mix and how to apply it the correct way, then clean it up and take it down" said freshmen Hannah Peitler.

"It was fun and kind of relaxing once you got the hang of it and the teacher was super nice and helped us out if we were having trouble."

Senior, Trevor Cleary wishes the Masonry Shop was available to him as a freshmen.

"If I had the option I would have selected the masonry shop because there would be more opportunities to make more money" Cleary said.

"I like doing laborious jobs and masonry is more physically challenging so I would have picked that shop if I had the choice" said senior Victor Tepi.

Senior Elmir Bukalo is excited for the opportunities presented to the Class of 2026.

"The Masonry Shop presents more opportunity for cash flow and job opportunities" Bukalo said.