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Project Grade 12 Careers & CTE

Linthwaite Water District: Design a Paid Operator Apprenticeship

A five-session grade 12 careers project in which students design a paid operator apprenticeship for a fictional water district under a budget cap and licensing timeline.

Objectives

  1. Students will translate state operator licensing requirements into a structured on-the-job training plan.
  2. Students will build a three-year program budget that stays within a stated annual cap.
  3. Students will justify recruitment and retention incentives in terms of who benefits and who pays.
  4. Students will present and defend a workforce proposal to a panel acting as a utility board.

Vocabulary

Key words: registered apprenticeship, competency checklist, wage schedule, exam domain, retention provision, career ladder

Teacher overview

Students spend five sessions designing a paid apprenticeship program for a fictional utility, the Linthwaite Water District, which must replace a third of its operating staff within four years. The driving question is how a utility builds its next generation of operators when the same candidates are being recruited by every other utility in the region. Teams deliver a written proposal and a ten-minute presentation to a panel acting as the district's board. Teachers should watch for one recurring mistake: teams tend to write a training plan without a wage schedule, and a plan that does not say what an apprentice earns each year is not a proposal a board can vote on.

Linthwaite Water District: Design a Paid Operator Apprenticeship — Grade 12 Careers & CTE
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Project Brief

Driving question: How should the fictional Linthwaite Water District build its next generation of licensed operators, and what will that program cost?

The client. Linthwaite is a fictional district serving about 52,000 people from one surface water plant, one wastewater reclamation facility, and 210 miles of distribution main. Eleven of its thirty-three operating positions are held by staff who become retirement-eligible within four years. Its last two operator postings drew three applicants each, and both were filled by candidates who left within a year. The board has asked for a proposal for a paid apprenticeship that starts next July.

Workforce context you may cite. About 10,000 openings for water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators are projected each year, on average, from 2025 to 2035, all from replacing workers who retire or leave the occupation. Roughly one-third of the water workforce becomes retirement-eligible within the next decade, and in 2016 only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger, compared with 12.5 percent of all U.S. workers (Brookings). Operators earned a median $60,020 per year in May 2025; the lowest-paid 10 percent earned less than $39,110 and the highest-paid 10 percent more than $91,060. These pay figures describe treatment plant and system operators specifically.

Constraints your proposal must satisfy.

  1. The fictional program budget is capped at $180,000 in year one and may grow by no more than five percent in each later year.
  2. At least four apprentices must be qualified to sit for the state's second-level operator exam (Class II in many states; use your state's equivalent) by the end of year three.
  3. Apprentices are paid employees from day one. Your wage schedule must state an hourly rate for each of the three years.
  4. The competency checklist must contain at least twenty on-the-job tasks, each mapped to one of the exam domains your state publishes.
  5. The plan must name at least two partner organizations for recruitment, such as a high school program, a community college, a workforce board, a veterans service organization, or a community group.
  6. The plan must include one retention provision and must state plainly what happens if an apprentice leaves before completing the program.
  7. The program must be compatible with the other routes into the district's workforce. Linthwaite also hires certificate holders, associate degree graduates, and four-year degree graduates, and your proposal must say how apprentices and those hires move through the same career ladder.

Deliverable. A written proposal of eight to twelve pages containing a requirements brief, a competency checklist, a three-year budget table, a wage schedule, a recruitment and retention plan, and a one-page summary for the board. Teams also give a ten-minute presentation to a panel of classmates and adults acting as the fictional Linthwaite board, followed by five minutes of questions.

Milestones

  1. Session 1, requirements brief. Research your own state's operator certification rules and record the license classes, the experience hours each class requires, the published exam domains, and the renewal cycle. Output: a one-page brief citing the state pages you used, plus a short paragraph on why the fictional Linthwaite retirements make that second-level timeline the binding constraint.
  2. Session 2, competency checklist. Convert the exam domains from session 1 into at least twenty on-the-job tasks an apprentice can actually be signed off on, with the year in which each is expected and the name of the role that signs it. Output: the completed checklist.
  3. Session 3, budget and wage schedule. Build a three-year budget inside the fictional $180,000 first-year cap, covering apprentice wages, the supervising operator's release time, exam and tuition costs, and safety gear. Output: a budget table with every assumption stated in a note beneath it, and a wage schedule showing an hourly rate for each year.
  4. Session 4, recruitment and retention plan. Write the recruitment plan naming your two partner organizations and the specific step you will take with each, draft the job posting, and state your retention provision along with what happens if an apprentice leaves early. Output: the plan, the posting, and a short paragraph identifying who benefits from each incentive and who pays for it.
  5. Session 5, proposal and board presentation. Assemble the proposal, write the one-page board summary, and present to the panel. Output: the finished proposal and the presentation, with each team answering at least two questions from the panel.

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

Rubric
Criterion Advanced Proficient Developing Emerging
Licensing accuracy Requirements brief states the state's classes, experience hours, exam domains, and renewal cycle correctly and cites each source States classes and experience hours correctly with most sources cited Describes licensing in general terms with gaps or one clear error Licensing requirements are missing or largely inaccurate
Competency checklist Twenty or more tasks, each mapped to a named exam domain, sequenced by year, with a signing role for every task Twenty tasks mapped to domains with most sequenced and assigned Fewer than twenty tasks, or mapping to domains is inconsistent Checklist is a list of duties with no link to the exam domains
Budget within constraint Three-year budget stays inside the fictional cap and its growth limit, every line is explained, and the wage schedule is complete Budget stays inside the cap with most assumptions stated Budget exceeds the cap or leaves major costs unexplained No usable budget, or no wage schedule
Recruitment and retention Names two partners with a specific step for each, includes a retention provision and an early-departure rule, and states who bears each cost Names two partners and a retention provision with general implementation detail Names partners without specific steps, or omits the early-departure rule Recruitment and retention are not addressed
Career ladder fit Explains clearly how apprentices, certificate holders, and degree holders advance through the same ladder without ranking the routes Explains how apprentices join the ladder with some attention to other routes Mentions other routes without explaining how they connect Treats the apprenticeship as the only legitimate route
Board presentation Presents within time, uses the budget and checklist as evidence, and answers panel questions with specifics Presents within time and answers questions adequately Runs over time or answers questions without reference to the proposal Does not present, or the presentation does not follow the proposal

Differentiation

Support

Give these teams a partially built competency checklist with the exam domains already listed and six example tasks filled in, and a budget template for the fictional program with the line items named and the formulas in place so students enter only their own figures. Assign a specific partner organization rather than asking the team to choose, and let session 5 be a four-minute presentation of the one-page summary rather than the full proposal.

Extension

Ask advanced teams to add a sensitivity analysis to the fictional Linthwaite budget, showing what happens to the three-year plan if two of the four apprentices leave in year two, and to propose one change to the program that would reduce that risk. They should also write a half-page comparison of their apprenticeship with a registered apprenticeship standard published by a state or federal program.

ELL supports

Pre-teach apprenticeship, competency, domain, wage schedule, and retention with short definitions and a labeled three-year timeline showing when each milestone falls. Provide the requirements brief as a fill-in table rather than prose, allow the job posting to follow a supplied template, and let students present with a script they have rehearsed with a partner.

Extensions

Invite a local utility's human resources staff member or a workforce board representative to sit on the session 5 panel and respond to the proposals. Many utilities and regional workforce boards will send someone for a school panel at no cost, and the questions they ask tend to be the ones a real board would ask.