The Zena School will soon have students walk through the halls for the first time in nearly a decade now that Linemen Institute of the North East has taken possession of the building.
When everything is set up, students of a different kind will be on hand in the former elementary school, learning the basics of becoming a lineman from setting and climbing utility poles to stringing new lines. Students will also learn first aid and CPR and obtain OSHA certification and qualify for a commercial driver license, which is necessary to drive a utility truck.
The school was alive with activity until June 2013, when the last elementary school students walked out the doors. That’s when the Kingston City School District shuttered the place due to declining enrollment. Paul Green of the Rock Academy partnered with Michael Lang, promoter of the original 1969 Woodstock Music Festival and others to purchase the school in 2015 to create the Woodstock Music Lab, but it apparently never got off the ground.
The building sat vacant on its 23 acres until Don Leiching and his wife Nanci were looking for a permanent home for the Linemen Institute, which has been operating at 1 Tomsons Road in Saugerties behind the Big Lots shopping center. Leiching has 25 years of experience as an electric company lineman and has worked across the country.
After completing a 15-week program, graduates are hired as apprentices. Once they complete a four- to five-year apprenticeship, they can earn a six-figure salary. “And so far, the demand for linemen is so high, we have well over a 90 percent placement rate,” Leiching said. “There’s 112,000 of us in the whole country. It doesn’t sound like enough, does it, with 350 million people. Yeah, 112,000.” And they’re getting older and more are inching toward retirement. About a quarter of linemen are aged 55 to 65 and about 21 percent are 45 to 55.
During a recent walk-through of the school, the couple talked about future uses for rooms that have been neglected but will get a new lease on life with a little TLC. “This room in here, we’re actually going to turn it into a banquet hall feel. We have three graduations per year which are formal suit-and-tie,” Leiching said, walking into the former cafetorium, a multipurpose room common in schools built in the 1950s that served as the cafeteria, auditorium and event room. “The woman who did the interior decorating for Bearsville Studios is going to help me do it,” Nanci Leiching said.
The cafetorium, as well as other rooms in the school, appeared as if the school had closed just the day before. Murals are still on the walls. The Leichings are trying to figure out what to with them. “Yeah, it just feels terrible to sit here and throw them in the dumpster. It doesn’t feel right. Actually, in the kindergarten classes, there’s still names of the students which is terribly sad,” Nanci Leiching said. “But this is it this is perfect for our needs. I wish it was a little bit smaller.”
The building has sat for so many years, so it is a little neglected, but the plan is for fall classes to start on the property. “So we have the roof to do. There’s all kinds of interesting mystery stains. I have no idea what the heck that is,” Nanci Leiching said, pointing to a stain on the hallway floor tiles. “So we have to get the building clean. We have to get it repaired and we have to get it broken up suitably for us.”
The couple hopes to rent parts of the building out to other schools.
“I have contacted the baseball training facility in Saugerties. I know Tech City is throwing people out. I contacted a few people in there. We would love to get schools. We have a perfect setup for preschools,” she said.
Leiching said they have about 20,000 square feet of spare building available. “So basically this bottom floor is what we’ll be using. We’ll have our offices, the classroom, the teachers’ office and then will have a kitchen and cafeteria type area. We have 40 students.”
Most of time will be spent learning the trade, so not as much indoor space is needed. “We spend all day outside. We spend about, I would say at the very most an hour a day inside,” Leiching said. “…the other day it rained and we were outside. We got soaking wet all day long. I tell them if you can’t work in the rain, you can’t be a lineman,” he said. “Once the power’s out, all bets are off. We’re outside getting wet.”
Not many locals apply
“I wish we would get more local kids,” Nanci Leiching said. “A lot of them don’t want to move. They want to get a job at Central Hudson and that’s it and it’s not going to happen…They could potentially get jobs at Central Hudson but not all of them. Unfortunately, they need to sort of put in their time going places. Once you become a journeyman lineman you can go anywhere. You can name your place.”
Out in the field next to the school is where the bulk of training will happen. That’s where students will learn how to dig the holes, set the poles and climb them. There will be about 70 poles when it is all completed.
Graduations are big deal. The families are invited and the festivities begin with a rodeo of sorts where the graduates climb the poles in timed competitions. After that is done, things move inside for a formal ceremony.
Lower class sizes for a better learning experience
“The schools down south, we noticed, they have a lot of students. When you go to climb the poles, they actually have to line up and take turns,” Nanci Leiching said. “We vowed we were not going to do things like that. We were going to keep it small and individualized.”
And the applications keep coming.
“We’re probably well over 100…before we were right at what we wanted,” Leiching said. “Now I’ll fill next summer’s class and be able to take the students that I didn’t pick and say do you want to come in September and fill September’s class also with that same group.”
The average age of students is between 20 and 23. There are a lot under 21 but quite a few over 21, Leiching said. Some have chosen the field as a second career. “In the last class that just graduated, I probably had 10 students with bachelor’s degrees. Three of them were corrections officers for 10 years. And they just said I don’t want to do this anymore,” Leiching said. “They have friends, or they know somebody that works for the power company. One guy was an accountant and his friend’s a lineman so he did his taxes. He said why am I an accountant? Maybe I should be a lineman.”
Lineman school becomes a requirement
In the past, one could get a job as an apprentice lineman with no prior experience. Now, many power companies require graduation from a school like the one run by Don and Nanci before becoming an apprentice. “The primary reason for that is because a lot of tree apprentices, when they climb the poles, they thought they could do it, but they can’t. And they get up there and say I can’t do it,” Nanci Leiching said.
“We have students drop out normally in the first week,” Leiching said, noting a lot of climbing is done in that period.”
Linemen Institute has had women, but not recently
“I had four women two classes ago. I haven’t gotten any since,” Leiching said. “And they did fantastic. They’re all working. They all just got six-figure jobs and they’re off on their career, which is really what it’s all about.”
Cost of enrollment
Tuition and fees are $17,956 for the 15-week program. Tools are an additional $3,025 and certifications are $60. Housing, made available through the school, is $2000 to $2500.
Payment plans and student loans are available.
Registration and information are available at linemeninstitute.com.
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