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Displaying items by tag: BOCES

Thursday, 25 January 2018 12:35

Local Students Go Global

[Photos provided]

SARATOGA COUNTY — GlobalFoundries has teamed up with BOCES to create a new collaborative and streamlined program to help high school seniors enter the engineering technician training program, which begins in September. “What we’re trying to do, in the case of GlobalFoundries, is work directly with our business industry partners in the region in helping to create programs that support the training that they need so kids can move into careers with those employers and through the employers, also work for higher education. It’s really how can we help meet the workforce demands of local employers to drive our economy and help prepare kids for really great careers in our own backyard,” Joe Dragone, senior executive officer of BOCES said.

For high school seniors, the training program is the length of their senior year and is a half day program. Students will attend the program like they would if they were in a career tech training program and in the second half of the year they work directly with the HR department at GlobalFoundries regarding job qualifications. This program is also available for adults and is a six-week program, which BOCES is hoping to kick off this spring.

“For the adult program, they are self-funded but we’re working through some grant opportunities to off-set that, so tuition may be minimal or free,” Dragone explained.

“Regionally, there are three strong work-force investment boards that work with adults looking for forward training or unemployed adults looking for new career opportunities, as well as collaboration with the chambers and the community colleges. We have our own adult education programs so it’s working with the agencies that engage the adult population to make sure that they are aware of the opportunity,” he stated.

While starting salaries remain to be determined, it all depends on what the student qualifies at and what the industry is offering at that time. “Even at entry-level positions in this field, it can be very lucrative and a great career opportunity,” Dragone said.

Interest in the program has been great and seniors from 23 school districts will begin to enroll in the coming weeks. The student program begins in September 2018.

“GlobalFoundries is a great partner, they’re allowing site visits and tour opportunities from all of our school districts, so they can understand what this field is about. This is really the evolution of career and technical training and you’re seeing it in advanced manufacturing, you’re seeing it in clean technologies. As training continues to grow, as technologies continue to grow, it’s expanded from the usual portfolio, which is also still in high demand, of our traditional career and technology fields, to this evolution of career and technical training that includes all of the hightech industries as well,” he explained.

Students will be trained in automation, valve operation, electronics, and will learn how to investigate delays in the manufacturing process.

“This is one program, of hopefully many more to come, that we’re working on where as a region, we can look to see how there can be strong collaboration to strengthen opportunities for students,” Dragone stated.

Published in Education
Thursday, 07 September 2017 13:51

SEDC's Career Jam

[Graphic provided by Ryan Van Amburgh.]

SARATOGA SPRINGS – The Saratoga-Warren-Washington Workforce Development Board, in conjunction with The Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex (WSWHE) BOCES and the Saratoga County Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), are presenting the region’s inaugural Career Jam on Wednesday, Oct. 25.

“Career Jam is a one-day hands-on career exploration event for eighth and ninth grade in our area,” according to the SEDC statement.

These Clusters are: Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources; Architecture and Construction; Arts, A/V Technology and Communications; Business, Management, and Administration; Education and Training; Finance; Government and Public Administration; Health Sciences; Hospitality and Tourism; Human Services; Information Technology; Law, Public Safety, Corrections, and Security; Manufacturing; Marketing; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics; Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics.

A contact at Clarkson University reached out to SEDC and introduced them to the Jefferson-Lewis Workforce Development Board (WDB) who has been hosting this event for the past three years through the Jefferson-Lewis BOCES in Watertown, New York.

This will be the first time Career Jam is taking place locally. The closest it has taken place previously is in the Finger Lakes Region and Watertown Region.

Ryan Van Amburgh, Economic Development Specialist for SEDC, said “our main goal for the event is to highlight local job options to young students.”

Approximately 500 kids will be attending from school districts around the region.

“We are working with The Clean Tech ECHS junior and seniors as our volunteers and Joseph Dragone, Superintendent from Ballston Spa Central School and Joseph Greco, Director of K-!2 Math, Science, and Technology Integration, from Saratoga Springs Schools as our volunteers,” Van Amburgh said.

“We are most excited about showcasing the business community and all the opportunities locally for students,” Van Amburgh stated.

“Local businesses from each Career Cluster will be present with hands-on activities that will engage and encourage students to look at the many career opportunities and areas of study that are relevant to our local area. We want to provide our youth with this valuable information as they decide what careers and education to pursue in their futures,” the statement declared.

“Our objective is to expose students early on to the careers that are available right here in their own region as well as the opportunity to be educated for them in that region and provide well paying jobs and it’s not really too early for them to start considering what that looks like. So we have some great business partners throughout that come and help us with our curriculum so we thought it would be a great idea to offer an opportunity for all these students to come in and see what’s there. The thing that we wanted to make sure that it was not just one of those career fairs where you get a brochure and you hear about the company but you don’t actually do anything. So, the intent is to have each business partner have a hands-on event, so students get to do some hands-on experiments,” said Kim Wegner, Coordinator of Enrichment S.T.E.M. and Career Connections at BOCES.

This event will take place in the TEC-SMART building, which is on Hermes Road in Malta.

If you are a business or students interested in learning more about Career Jam, visit www.Career-Jam.com.

 

Published in Education
Thursday, 01 June 2017 13:29

R U Tuff eNuff? These BOCES Students Are

SARATOGA SPRINGS – This Saturday, June 3, will bring the sixth annual TUFF eNUFF obstacle course challenge to Saratoga Springs, providing local families and fitness enthusiasts with a day of high-energy, muddy fun on the reconstituted fields near the F. Donald Myers Education Center.  Prior to the big day, the course itself has to be planned and constructed, and for the last six years these tasks have fallen into the hands of local BOCES students who learn their crafts at the Henning Road campus.

Each September, The Prevention Council gets in touch with Greg Hammond and Ken Brooks, instructors at the Henning Road BOCES in the Heavy Equipment Program, to work out a date for the following year’s TUFF eNUFF challenge.  From there, according to Hammond, the instructors and their students will begin the process of putting together the course about three weeks in advance, beginning first with the planning stages.  The actual construction portion of the build takes up the last week or so before the event takes place.  Every BOCES student in the Heavy Equipment program works on the project, which Hammond estimates to be around 80 students in a given year.

According to some of the students who have worked on this year’s course, the equipment used to prepare the TUFF eNUFF course are the typical vehicles that one would expect on a construction site: excavators, backhoes, bulldozers, wheel loaders, and more.

“A little bit of everything,” Hammond said.

This equipment is used to create the primary facets of the TUFF eNUFF course, including trenches to be filled with muddy water, and giant mounds of dirt to be scaled by runners.  After these elements are in place, Hammond says that a number of other elements are brought in to spice things up, including logs, tires, ropes, and a number of other things to make the course more challenging.

Aaron Lohaus, a student in the Heavy Equipment program, also noted the importance of safety in designing and constructing the course.  He said that different considerations have to be made for the children’s course versus the normal course, including the depth of the trenches, to avoid potential drowning hazards for the smaller competitors.  Furthermore, safety checks for the whole project are needed to ensure that nothing is left in place that might be too sharp or that might trip up participants in a bad way.

All the tasks that go into creating these courses tie back into the lessons the students learn in the Heavy Equipment program.  Unsurprisingly, proper operation techniques are an important part of the program, but the students also learn how perform maintenance on the various vehicles and pieces of equipment they work with.  Additionally, as Lohaus highlighted, safety is a major part of what they learn about, especially when it comes to being aware of their fellow workers on the project site.

In recent years, the Prevention Council has also brought in students from other BOCES programs to improve the overall TUFF eNUFF experience.  This includes students from the culinary program, who help put together a barbeque for the event, as well as student from the criminal justice program, who help to police the course and direct the flow of participants on the course.

The Sixth Annual TUFF eNUFF challenge will take place at the Henning Road BOCES on June 3.  The Kids 1 Mile Run will begin at 8:30 a.m., followed by the Teens/Adults 5K at 9:15 a.m.  Anyone interested can register at www.finishright.com, and more information can be found by calling 518-581-1230. 

Published in Education

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Former Accounts Clerk for Saratoga Springs Mary Zlotnick, who was fired after a hearing officer ruled in December that Zlotnick had violated three of the five subordination charges the city had lodged against her after she accused the city’s assistant assessor of helping a Malta businesswoman solicit fees from condominium residents in the city in exchange for reduced assessments, and then alerted several newspapers and media outlets of her accusation. 

Published in News

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