PARIS – Students have to put down their pencils and put on their welding masks to pass the mid-term exam in Fred Steeves’ auto collision repair technology program.

“On this day everyone is serious,” Steeves said. On Friday, he and six judges watched a dozen or so students show off their skills in areas such as spray painting a car door, repairing a dented fender and welding a piece of steel during the daylong, mid-term exam at Oxford Hills Technical High School.

The exam will not only become part of their overall grade, but it will determine the coveted “best in the class” and which two students will represent the school in the Skills USA competition in Bangor in March. The results from the judges, some of whom come from Auburn, Buckfield and Portland, are expected early next week.

The popular two-year auto collision repair technology program prepares students for a career in repairing, replacing and straightening components on damaged cars. The first year they learn how to safely operate state-of-the-art equipment and then go into a program designed to perfect their skills. They can leave the class not only with marketable skills but with national certification in welding.

“There are so many people who just don’t know what’s here,” said Steeves of the 17 different programs offered in the technical school, which is part of the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School. For example, he said, students can get the $800 national certification in welding through the school for just $55 by doing their course work in the auto collision repair program and then submitting paperwork.

Many of the students will continue after graduation to further their education in auto repair or join the work force.

“I like the program,” said Amanda Perkins of Paris, the only woman in Friday’s competition. Perkins said she is aiming her sights at a four-year auto-collision repair program at a Pennsylvania college after graduation in 2011.

“The auto body industry has changed a lot,” Steeves said. “It used to be that you didn’t need to really read or know how to write that well or be academically that good.”

Now all that has changed. “They have to know how to run computers, read manuals, hand write estimates,” Steeves said of the skills required to compete in the industry.

The students are taught the basics, such as writing estimates by hand, before they begin to tackle how to do it on the computer, he said.

Wade Morrissette, who graduated from the program two years ago and now works at Coleman’s Collision Center in Auburn, was back at the school Friday to help judge the students.

He said his time at the technical school program was well worth it. He won a full scholarship to a technical college in Ohio, earned his national certification for welding and went on to win the Skills USA program statewide and be ranked 11th in the nation.

“Worry about quality, not the time,” he advised students.