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Reading passage Grade 10 Careers & CTE

An Apprentice at Cape Verdant: Joining the Water Workforce

A grade 10 careers reading passage following an apprentice at a water utility, covering the operator licensing ladder, real pay figures, and why the field is hiring.

Objectives

  1. Students will identify the steps of the operator licensing path described in the passage.
  2. Students will infer why the water field has steady job openings even without rapid growth.
  3. Students will explain how pay and retirements act as incentives shaping a utility's hiring.

Vocabulary

Apprenticeship
A way to learn a skilled job by working alongside experienced workers while getting paid. Water utilities use apprenticeships to train new operators and technicians.

Also: operator license, license class, workforce

Teacher overview

This passage follows a new apprentice at a water utility and uses her first months to explain how a person becomes a licensed operator. It also lays out why the field has steady openings and what the work pays. Teachers can assign it to introduce the water sector's career paths and to practice drawing inferences from an informational text. Cape Verdant and its apprentice are invented for this passage, while the pay and workforce figures are real.

An Apprentice at Cape Verdant: Joining the Water Workforce — Grade 10 Careers & CTE
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Passage

Sofia Reyes finished high school in June and started work in July. She did not go straight to a four-year college. Instead she joined an apprenticeship at the Cape Verdant Regional Water Authority. An apprenticeship is a paid job that trains a worker on the job while an expert guides them. Sofia wanted to earn money and learn a trade at the same time, and the water authority wanted new workers, so the arrangement fit both.

On her first day, a licensed operator named Ted showed her around the plant. Sofia learned that the plant never closes. Water must be safe every hour of every day, so operators work in shifts. In her first months, Sofia shadowed licensed operators on each shift. She learned to read the plant's control screens, which track flow, tank levels, and chemical feed. She also learned to collect water samples at set points, test the chlorine level, and write down every reading. A licensed operator checked her work as she practiced each task.

To run a plant on her own, Sofia will need a license. The path is clear. It starts with a high school diploma, which she has. Next comes training on the job, which the apprenticeship provides. Then she must pass a state exam. Each state sets its own license levels. In Sofia's state, licenses come in classes, numbered I through IV. The class is tied to how large and complex the plant is. A small plant may be run by a Class I or II operator. A large plant needs a Class III or IV operator, which takes more years of work and a harder exam. Sofia plans to earn her Class I license first, then move up.

Cape Verdant is hiring because its workforce is aging. Across the country, roughly one-third of the water workforce will be able to retire within the next decade. In 2016, only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger, compared with 12.5 percent of all U.S. workers. When older workers retire, someone must take their place. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 10,000 openings for water and wastewater operators each year from 2025 to 2035. That figure counts operators, not the whole sector, and all of the openings come from retirements and job changes rather than from brand-new positions. In 2025 the country employed about 131,000 of these operators.

The pay is steady. Operators earned a median of $60,020 per year as of May 2025. The lower-paid tenth earned less than $39,110, and the top tenth earned over $91,060. Where an operator lands in that range depends on experience, license class, and location. As Sofia earns higher license classes and takes on harder work, her pay can climb toward the top of the range.

Sofia's path is one of several. Some people enter through certificate programs at a community college. Some earn four-year degrees and become engineers who design the plants. Some go further and study subjects like hydrology in graduate school. Cape Verdant even offers to help pay tuition for apprentices who later want to become engineers. Ted told Sofia that the field needs all of these paths, because running, building, and improving a water system takes many kinds of training. For now, Sofia is happy to learn the plant one shift at a time.

Questions

  1. What did Sofia do after high school instead of going straight to a four-year college, and what basic education did she already have?
  2. Name two tasks Sofia learned to do during her first months at the plant.
  3. According to the passage, what determines an operator's license class?
  4. Why does the passage say most operator openings come from retirements rather than from new positions? Use details from the passage.
  5. The passage gives a pay range. Explain what could move an operator from the lower end toward the higher end.
  6. The passage says Sofia's path is one of several. Why might a utility want workers who trained in different ways?
  7. Explain how the retirement wave and the pay described in the passage act as incentives that lead Cape Verdant to run an apprenticeship.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: She joined a paid apprenticeship at the Cape Verdant water authority, and she already had a high school diploma. The passage states she finished high school in June and started the apprenticeship in July.
  2. Answer: Any two of: reading the plant's control screens, collecting water samples, testing the chlorine level, or writing down readings, all of which the passage lists among what she learned.
  3. Answer: The size and complexity of the plant. The passage says that in Sofia's state the license class, I through IV, is tied to how large and complex the plant is; each state sets its own levels.
  4. Answer: Because the workforce is aging, and when older workers retire someone must replace them. The passage notes about one-third of the workforce can retire within a decade and that in 2016 only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger, compared with 12.5 percent of all U.S. workers, so all openings come from retirements and job changes rather than new positions.
  5. Answer: Gaining experience, earning higher license classes, and taking on harder work, along with location, can move an operator toward the higher end. The passage ties pay to experience, license class, and location.
  6. Answer: Answers will vary but should note that running, building, and improving a water system takes different skills, so a utility benefits from operators, technicians, engineers, and researchers trained in different ways, as the passage's final paragraph explains.
  7. Answer: The many coming retirements create a need for new workers, and steady pay makes the work attractive, so both act as incentives. Together they give Cape Verdant a reason to invest in an apprenticeship that trains and keeps new operators, as the passage describes.

Differentiation

Support

Provide a simple ladder graphic of the licensing path (high school diploma, on-the-job training, pass the state exam, Class I through IV in Sofia's state) for students to reference while answering questions 1 and 3, and allow question 4 to be answered aloud before writing.

Extension

Ask students to write a short paragraph, using only the passage, explaining why Cape Verdant's offer to help pay tuition for future engineers could benefit both the worker and the utility over time.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "apprenticeship," "operator license," and "license class" with simple definitions and an example. Allow the literal questions (1, 2, 3) to be answered with short phrases rather than full sentences, and pair students for the inference questions.