Category: News

Mike Stannard-RHS Science Teacher (second from left) with Mark Raishart- Instructor from STC Forestry & Natural Resource Program (second from right), Dan Lovell-Assistant Forestry Instructor- (far right), and students from Stafford’s Forestry & Natural Resources Program

Call it a “Maple Merger”.

Recently, Rutland High School (RHS) and Stafford Technical Center collaborated on a maple sugaring project that yielded some “sweet” results.  Mike Stannard, Science Teacher, at Rutland High School secured a grant for maple sugaring supplies.  The funds were earmarked to purchase a 2′ by 3′ wood fired hobby evaporator, propane canner, and some sap buckets.

Stafford’s Forestry & Natural Resource Program supplied the space for the project, funding for equipment (wet saw for cutting the brick), smokestack, and a custom built skid for transporting the evaporator. The skid allowed the Forestry students to move the evaporator with their tractor.  They also furnished support for the evaporator assembly and firewood for the RHS sugar making unit.

Stafford’s Forestry Program boiled approximately 50 gallons of sap with the evaporator.  The boiling was the conclusion of their month long unit of evaluating sugarhouses and studying the art & science of producing maple syrup.  The syrup that was made will be donated to Stafford’s Culinary Arts Program to be used in the Dollhouse Restaurant.

Photo: L-R: Cassie Ciejko(Culinary Arts Program -Fair Haven Union High School), Courtney Patterson (Health Careers-Fair Haven Union High School), Governor Shumlin, and Amber Fischer-Public Safety Services: Law Enforcement(Rutland High School)

Governor Peter Shumlin visited Stafford Technical Center on March 4^th.  He toured the facility and met many students including including  Cassie Ciejko-Culinary Arts Program (Fair Haven Union  High School), Courtney Patterson-Health Careers (Fair Haven Union High School), and Amber Fischer-Public Safety Services: Law Enforcement (Rutland High School).

The students talked with the Governor about Dual Enrollment (earning high school and college credits simultaneously), and Workforce Development.  Others involved in the roundtable discussion were Secretary of Education Armando Vilaseca, Rutland Mayor Chris Louras,  Rutland City Public Schools Superintendent Mary Moran, Stafford Director Lyle Jepson, and Assistant Director Ted Guilmette.

Photo: Joel Galvin (Fair Haven Union HS), Dylan Goad (Fair Haven), Dustin Stone (Mill River), Roger Brown (Mill River), Brenda Corbett (Poultney), Robin Williams (Proctor), Nikki Greenier (Mill River), Katelyn Young ( Mill River) – Distracted Driving Team Members. Missing from photo- Aleea Dauphinais (Mill River)

The Stafford Technical Center SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) Chapter has entered the National Organization for Youth Safety’s (NOYS) annual ActOutLoud.com distracted driving contest. The contest, which is open to any club or organization in any high school or junior high school in the United States, which could potentially be tens of thousands of applicants,  has a $10,000 first prize, as well as a $1,000 stipend for completing all the steps in the competition. Last year, the Stafford SADD Chapter was a runner-up in this nation contest.

This year, the contest has a number of different tasks, and the SADD Chapter has put together a team of Stafford students in a concerted effort to be the national champions. The tasks involve a poster contest, which advertises the Act Out Loud “Rally”, a competition to design a toolkit of promotional items to be given to all the competing school groups for use in the national competition, a T-shirt design, which advertises Global Youth Safety Month, planning and implementing the local rally/ traffic safety day, and a video of the local rally.

The core of the Stafford team is seven SADD members from the Public Safety Services Program, each of whom brings different skills and relationships to the team. They are Nicole Greenier, a senior from Mill River Union High School, Dustin Stone, Roger Brown, Jr., and Aleea Dauphinais, juniors from Mill River Union High School, Joel Galvin, a junior from Fair Haven Union High School, Brenda Corbett, a junior from Poultney High School, and Brandi Heath, a junior from Otter Valley Union High School. The team also recruited three members with specific skills from three other Stafford programs: Dylan Goad, a senior from Fair Haven Union High School, who is in the Video Media Program, and who will be the team’s videographer for the video competition of the contest, Robin Williams, a senior from Proctor High School in the Digital Arts Program, who will provide needed expertise in the t-shirt and poster contests, and Katelyn Young, a senior from Mill River Union High School who is in Stafford’s Hospitality and Entrepreneurship Program, and will spearhead the promotional materials contest.

These ten students will also be planning Rutland County’s Youth Traffic Safety Rally , which will held with the SADD Chapter’s primary community partner, the Home Depot, at the Rutland Home Depot parking lot on May 11, 2013 from 10-2. Any groups that are interested in being part of this activity are encouraged to call the Stafford SADD Chapter Advisor, John D’Esposito, at 779-3903.

Recently, the first year students in the Stafford Technical Center Public Safety Services Class became nationally certified as trainers in the area of internet safety. The training was provided by Paul Faenza, a retired NYPD Sgt. who is a master trainer through I-SAFE and is presently employed by the Black River Area Coalition. I- SAFE is the largest and most well-known source for internet safety materials and training.

The train the trainer course that the students took had four main components; the students can offer any or all of the components in any trainings that they do in the future. The first element was cyberbullying, which is using a computer to harass someone else. This is most commonly done by teens that pick on another; sometimes, like in the case that occurred a few years ago in Essex, where fellow students harassed a teenager to the point where he committed suicide. Just recently, on the national scene, a mother was indicted in a similar case, where she allegedly harassed a classmate of her daughter until, she, too, killed herself.

The second component of the class deals with illegal downloading and file sharing. The class had clips from stars of music and film who explained that their work was their intellectual property, and then when people illegally download and file share, that the artists, composers and performers all suffer personal financial losses. The class also makes people aware of the significant penalties that you can incur for doing this.

The third area of concern is viruses, and other things that can damage or destroy computers. People who send viruses out to wreak their damage on others are hard to understand; they do it for the warped enjoyment that they get by hurting people who are strangers to them.

Lastly, hacking, identity theft and internet scams are all too common. Most of us have received one or more “Nigerian scams”, where someone from Nigeria says that he has just come into a large sum of money (often under questionable legal circumstances), and would be happy to share that with you, if you provide a much smaller sum of money as a show of good faith. Of course, people who send the money never get anything in return. Others have purchased items through the internet only to find that they got nothing in return, or got something completely different than what they ordered. Even more sinister are scams that steal your credit card numbers and other personal identification, thus allowing the thieves to steal your identity in order to access your bank accounts and credit.

The students who are now certified to provide this training to others are: Justin Franklin and Amber Fischer from Rutland High School, Dustin Stone, Nikki Greenier, Aleea Dauphinais, and Trisha Bush from Mill River Union High School, Joel Galvin from Fair Haven Union High School, Cassy Sourdiff, and Brandi Heath from Otter Valley Union High School, and John Blanchard, Brenda Corbett, and Roger Brown, Jr. from Poultney High School. The students are now available to do presentations to school groups, Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, church youth groups and other groups that would benefit from this program.

Pictured L-R: Stafford Culinary Arts Students: Cassie Ciejko (Fair Haven), Shaylynn Senecal (West Rutland), and Ryan Flood (Rutland High School)

On September 5th, Stafford Culinary Arts Students were utilizing construction tools in place of  kitchen tools  at the location of the new Vermont Farmers Food Center in the former Mintzer Brothers property, on West Street, in Rutland.

The students along with their instructors, Chef Lisa Fennimore and Chef Greg Lynch spent the day clearing brush and demolishing walls in what will eventually become a pavilion where special events will take place.  The Vermont Farmer’s Food  Center will be a future home for the Rutland Winter Farmer’s Market, Community Cupboard and serve as an agricultural educational resource center for the community.

Stafford Technical Center’s Power Mechanics/Welding Program is thinking green. They are asking for donations of recycled lawnmowers, garden tractors, compact equipment, all terrain vehicles and motorcycle’s for this year’s student projects. The students work on the equipment throughout the school year and are able to sell some of the pieces to earn money for their program. If you would like to make an equipment donation to Stafford Technical Center’s Power Mechanics/Welding Program, contact instructor Tony Bosnich at (802) 770-1058 or email him at [email protected]

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