At the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, Josh Oberleas, an assistant professor at Colorado Mountain College for the Skilled Crafts and Trades, started teaching at Salida High School. Oberleas currently teaches Introduction to Automobiles and Advanced Auto. Oberleas explained that the automotive courses through Colorado Mountain College have grown significantly in the past five years, going from one to nine programs.
While the Salida High School’s auto curriculum has stayed the same in technicality, there have still been several alterations to the method of teaching in these classes. They have used the CDX Learning System—an online learning program—to teach specific issues, methods and vocabulary and will continue using this system. However, the classes have also become more interactive for students.
“We’re having the students bring their vehicles in instead of bringing in a vehicle from outside,” Oberleas explained. Allowing students to work on their own vehicle, whether it be rotating tires or checking brakes, can give them more motivation to dedicate time and effort to the class. It can also allow students to have more applicable learning. Oberleas said, “When you’re working on your own car, then you can keep working on it with ease.” This movement away from long-term project cars, which Oberleas explained can take years, enables students to be more invested and productive, especially when learning skills that are relevant to their own vehicles.
Not only do students now work on their own vehicles, but they are also able to practice welding in their free time. “With the limited space we have here, I’m getting a group welding, usually every day,” Oberleas said. “Nothing structural or anything critical, but just [getting] over the fear of sparks and molten metal flying around.” With a larger number of students in his classes, having students practice other skills has helped manage limited space and resources and also creates more variation in the auto shop curriculum.
He has also worked to get more tools in rotation, which included the equipment for welding, in order to give students a higher level of practice. Hand in hand with providing tools, the backroom of Oberleas’s classroom is now open to students who might need oil or a specific chemical.
Oberleas said the hardest part of creating a new learning environment was breaking the old culture. He explained that in the past, there were a lot more students just sitting in the classroom and getting by with a good grade, but is now actually getting students in the shop and actively working on their own cars. He understands that students are not always up for 100% of their energy, and will make individual adjustments based on that, but he aims to get students as involved as possible. “If a student’s not having a day where they’re coming in here, [I] let them stay in there and do a study session, because not every day do you wanna get totally covered in oil,” Oberleas explained. Another challenge Oberleas faced when transitioning the procedures of SHS auto classes was informing the larger community that the school is no longer accepting project vehicles.
Oberleas’s Advanced Auto class provides students with auto certifications. Currently, the class is doing a deep dive into brakes, which ends with students having a brakes certificate. Having these certifications can provide students with a leg up when entering the workforce or post-secondary education. Oberleas said, “If you have certifications coming out of school, you can go straight into fields without having to really do more training, or you can go to any of these tech schools.”
Oberleas explained that the trades are an often overlooked line of work, but that “reviving all of these industries is, I think, one of the coolest things about it.” By improving the SHS trades classes, he is working to renew interest in these industries.
In the future, Oberleas hopes that they will be able to replace the current car lifts. “They are from the old high school, so they’re getting to their age limit. They still work great, but . . . we do have weight limits on these,” he said. Oberleas hopes that an upgraded lift system will allow students to get heavier vehicles, such as trucks, in the shop. He is also working to launch a general automotive class for local adults to get a better grasp of the basics.
Oberleas specifically thanked NAPA Auto Parts, O’Reilly’s and CarQuest for their patience and aid in supporting the class and students. NAPA and Mike’s Garage are donating a tool box and tool set to a student from the Advanced Auto class. The winner of the tools will be chosen through a raffle, and students can earn raffles through competitions such as their Auto Shop Olympics, where teams of students race to complete a task safely and accurately.
In his short time at SHS, Josh Oberleas has made many amendments to the automotive courses to improve student participation and interest in the skilled trades.
