The Marshall and Dawson-Boyd public school districts have received a combined $192,000 from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) in a state grant to expand or create career exposure programs in high-demand industries for students.

Dawson-Boyd received a total of $100,000, and Marshall received $92,048. The grant expands over two years, and comes from the DLI’s Youth Skills Training (YST) program.

The funding is used to expand programs that will offer students, 16 years or older, paid work experience with local partnerships in the fields of advanced manufacturing, agriculture, automotive, health care and information technology.

“We have decided to focus our grant on advanced manufacturing, agriculture, automotive and healthcare,” Marshall’s Director of Teaching and Learning Beth Ritter said. “Part of the grant is that (students) need to have a lot of exposure into the different industries and opportunities available within your community. We already have some things in place, so we’re just looking at expanding them.”

Specifically, Ritter said there’s a current work experience class offered at the Area Learning Center that serves as an example of one of the programs they are looking to expand, and incorporating that at the high school as well.

The grant also goes along well with the work done at Marshall’s Career and Technical Institute, which houses classrooms, labs and shop spaces for automotive, welding and nursing classes for high school students.

“With the work experience part of this grant, you really have to have a strong partnership with the different businesses in town, which we do have strong partnerships,” Ritter said. “This year, we’re going to really spend the year building those partnerships, seeing which businesses are interested in potentially hosting a student or a couple of students … (Then) next year, really offering it as a class.”

The grant program operates similarly to the internship class at the high school, except students will get paid industry-related work experience.

“Our hope is for it to be a lot bigger, and really reach more kids,” Ritter said. “Their work experience can look different depending on what they’re interested in and what they want to do.”

The grant money will provide professional training in the specified fields, and will also pay for industry-related student certifications.

Dawson-Boyd superintendent Holly Ward said the district will be using the grant money to build up their precision agriculture program. Specifically, they are looking at bringing in another teacher who will teach agricultural business using a robotics tractor lab.

“I think the [students] will be thrilled to have the hands-on [experience], because it’s not only building, it’s programming,” Ward said. “They’re building tractors, sprayers and trailers. They take it out, and they will be spraying and practicing their geospatial intelligence through that. We are thrilled.”

Ward noted Dawson-Boyd is also working to establish more local partnerships that could collaborate with the grant in providing more student-work experience.

Both Ritter and Ward expressed excitement about receiving the grant, and the opportunities and experience it will bring students.

“The development of this program is a direct result of feedback from area farmers,” Ward said. “And, their desire to see an increase in precision agriculture skills being taught in school.”

Through the state-wide grant, 17 school districts were chosen and received a total of $1.5 million in funding from the grant. The program will operate from July 1 of this year, to June 30 of 2027.

The YST program from the DLI originally began in 2017.

“These grants empower local communities to build strong pipelines of skilled talent, ensuring that Minnesota students gain safe, valuable, real-world work experience while addressing critical workforce demands in high-growth sectors,” DLI commissioner Nicole Blissenbach said in a statement. “Youth Skills Training is an investment in Minnesota’s future.”