Logan High School Students Build Tiny Home to Teach Life Skills and Independence

Inside Logan High School's woodshop in La Crosse, Wisconsin, students traded birdhouse projects for blueprints, picking up measuring tapes, nail guns, and drills to frame a fully functional tiny home right on campus. The structure, part of Logan's building and construction program, is designed to eventually serve as a training space where students in the school's access department can practice the fundamentals of independent living: cooking, cleaning, making a bed, maintaining a room.

The $6,000 Gold Star Grant from the La Crosse Public Education Foundation made the build possible. Technology education teacher Ryan Schreiner said the funding unlocked something that went well beyond a typical class assignment. "That's what really makes this project special," Schreiner said. "It's being built by students, for students. It just really makes it mean a little bit more to the kids, because they're building something that's going to be used by their peers."

Beyond framing and carpentry, the project gives students real-world exposure to electrical work and ADA accessibility requirements, a scope that pushes well past standard woodshop curriculum. Community members have also stepped in beyond the grant money. "We've been helped with material donations and expertise," Schreiner said, describing a level of outside investment that students themselves have noticed.

Senior Adrian Bye said the scale of the project forced him to rethink what construction work actually demands. "I'm learning a lot of teamwork skills because you really need teamwork skills to be able to finish a project like this," he said. When something goes wrong on the build, Bye described the approach directly: "You've just gotta, like, try to fix the mistake."

The completed home will give Logan's access department a dedicated space where middle and high school students can rehearse, in Bye's words, "the essential needs of living, like cleaning, cooking food, making your bed, cleaning your room." Schreiner added that the problem-solving students encounter when plans need to change mid-build is itself part of the lesson. "We have to adapt on the fly because it's kind of unique in that sense," he said. "I think those are skills they can really take to the workplace, and if anything, it helps them build confidence in themselves."

Nell Saunders-Scott, executive director of the La Crosse Public Education Foundation, said the project checked every box the foundation looks for when awarding grants. "It's collaboration between different student groups and teachers here at Logan," she said. "It has amazing impact, both for the students building the structure and for the kids who will use the structure. It's a very long lasting impact for this project."

No firm completion date has been set, but Schreiner anticipates the tiny home will be ready for use during the 2027-28 school year. Anyone interested in contributing to the project can contact Logan High School directly.