Tag: Center Students

Two Stafford Students Win Governor’s Award for Community Service

Two Stafford Technical Center students, Erika Stocker of Wallingford, and Ashley Barnes of Rutland, recently won the Governor’s Award for Community Service in the youth division. Both girls are seniors in the Public Safety Services Program and are members of the Students Against Destructive Decisions Chapter at Stafford Technical Center. The awards are granted through the Vermont Commission on National and Community Service, a bipartisan committee of 15 persons appointed by the governor. Both Ashley and Erika have also been nominated for the Presidential Volunteer Service Award at the gold level.

 Ashley Barnes has been an active member of the Rutland City Police Cadets and has done hundreds of hours of assisting  with traffic and crowd control, parades, training and other events over a 2 and a half year period.  Ashley has assisted Detective Ray LaMoria of the Rutland City Police in teaching the RAD (Rape Aggression Defense) Program to all sorts of people, from elementary school students, to high school students, to college students, and to special populations. Ashley plans on becoming a trainer in this program.

Both Ashley and Erika are both active members of the Stafford Technical Center SADD Chapter, and have donated hundreds of hours in training, and in projects designed to reduce the incidence of underage drinking, promote positive personal behaviors, provide positive role models, and to reduce other negative behaviors such as drug usage, dating violence, bullying, etc. They have presented on topics such as “Improper Cell Phone Use”, “Sexting”, and “Teen Dating Violence” at a number of schools and the state-wide Governor’s Youth Leadership Conference. They have been part of a number of highway safety projects, including the “Slow Down, Stick Around” Program which partnered community members and area libraries in an attempt to increase awareness of the dangers of speeding in cars.

Erika has been a very involved member of the Wallingford Fire Department, where she has done every task possible for a junior firefighter for the last five years. She has reported to car crashes, fire scenes, fundraisers, community benefit programs, and training. Her dedication is such that she has on more than one occasion been at a fire scene so late into the night that she came directly to school from the fire scene.

Public Safety Services Students Provide Teen Dating Violence Prevention Program

   The Public Safety Services Program’s first year students provided their peers, as well as the faculty and staff of Stafford Technical Center, with a presentation into the issue of teen dating violence. Regrettably, this issue is far more common than people know, with about 40% of teen girls knowing a peer who either is or has been in an abusive relationship. Abuse can take many forms, from verbal to emotional to social isolation, and physical abuse. Murder is the ultimate form of physical abuse. Women and teen girls are more likely to be murdered by their spouses, lovers, or boyfriends than by strangers by a 2 to 1 ratio.

  Often, young females in our society are not taught about the dangers of dating violence, so the presentation included the warning signs that someone might be in an abusive relationship, how to break up with an abuser safely, how to get help if you are in an abusive relationship, and the patterns of behaviors that abusers go through. While the presentation dealt primarily with male abusers and female victims, which is the case 85% of the time, some males are abused by female partners and some homosexuals of both sexes are abused by their partners as well.

  The students, who are also members of Stafford Technical Center’s SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) Chapter, also included some public service announcement, which heightened the effectiveness of their presentation. The audience consisted of all the Stafford Technical Center students who were not on an internship co-op that day, Stafford faculty and staff members. The number was estimated at around 250 people. The students highlighted the efforts of the State of Rhode Island, which passed the Lindsay Ann Burke Act, which mandated that all R.I. students in grades 7-12 get training about domestic violence as part of their school’s curriculum.

   The presenters included Geoffry McDonald, a senior at Otter Valley Union High School, who was the Project Director for this program, Rutland High School seniors James Bonilla, Christopher Crout, and Jordan Grenier, Proctor High School junior Kyle Lenher, Kayla Stewart, a junior at West Rutland High School, and juniors Cierra Phelps, James Reed, and Haley Cotrupi from Mill River Union High School. It was a very powerful presentation.  The Public Safety Services Group is available to present this information to other schools.

Digital Arts Students Rule at Statewide Competition

Two Stafford Technical Center Students  recently took top prizes at the annual Lyndon State College Design Competition.  Joey Henry (West Rutland High School) and 2nd year STC Digital Arts Student won first place in the poster design competition.  Paige Mayer (Rutland High School) and 2nd year STC Digital Arts Student was awarded first place for leadership and a $500.00 scholarship to Lyndon State College.  Tiahnna Gillam (Proctor High School) and a first year STC Digital Arts Student also participated in the competition. 

Attached l-R are Joey Henry’s Team Design and Paige Mayer’s Team DesignTeam 2 1

Team 6 1

Tool Tours

Kindergartners from Northwest School listen intently as Steve Briggs, Stafford Technical Center’s Computer Technology Instructor demonstrates how a “Bo-Bot” works.  The children participated in  Stafford’s annual Tool Tours Program where they have the opportunity to have their first glimpse of a technical center.   Students and Instructors from Stafford’s  Computer Technology, Culinary, Automotive Technology, Construction Technology, and Electrical/Plumbing engaged them in activities that modeled what is taught in their program areas.

Students Team Up with Local Architect on Teen Center

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Caption of Photo:  Front-L-R: Chad Johnson and John Pluta-Stafford Technical Center Students and in rear, Architect Mark McManus.

An exciting collaboration between the Slate Valley Teen Center in Fair Haven and Stafford Technical Center (STC)  has begun to develop as students from STC’s Architecture Engineering Design (AED) Program worked on the proposed teen center location under the supervision of architect, Mark McManus, of Middletown Springs.  STC second year students Chad Johnson and John Pluta, both from Mill River Union High School, spent time measuring, recording, and sketching the existing assembly space above the Fair Haven Municipal Offices.  This space originally housed the local high school, but has been unused for approximately 50 years.  The space boasts high ceilings, wood wainscoting, and tall windows, which bring in lots of natural light and wonderful views of the town green.  The Stafford AED students will have the opportunity to work on “as built” drawings which will be used in the development of a design for the center.This project has enabled the Stafford students to utlize their program skills in a “real world” application.

The proposed teen center will serve eleven surrounding towns and two high schools, Fair Haven Union High School and Poultney High School.

Stafford keeps on truckin’ toward job opportunities

NORTH CLARENDON — On the windowsill of a classroom inside the Vermont Wood Pellet Company lies business card after business card.

  They represent major trucking companies from across the country that Stafford Technical Center students can apply to after they graduate the Stafford Driving Training School for commercial driver’s licenses on the pellet company’s North Clarendon lot.

 The cards represented connections, made along the way by trucker-turned-instructor Tim Maxfield.

According to educators and local work force leaders, the school offers a whole new world of employment opportunities for high school and adult students in what could be one of the most dangerous, demanding but better-paying professions — truck driving.

 After receiving a Class B or Class A license from the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, unemployed Vermonters or those looking for a career change can find themselves on the road — driving school buses, hauling cars on the back of tow trucks or carrying 80,000 pounds of freight through rural country sides or on lonely interstates.

That’s where the new school comes in, according to classroom instructor Jim Patry.

 “There’s a lot more to the trucking industry that you have to get implanted in your head than you get through the state manual (alone),” Patry said.

  “The feds are leaning toward people not being able to just go and get their license by sitting next to a licensed driver and doing a quick manual study. “

Anyone can take a CDL test at their local DMV if they bring along a vehicle to test in.

But a federal law called the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986 requires states to abide by minimum national standards when licensing commercial drivers, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.  

”The Act corrects the situation that existed prior to 1986 by making it illegal to hold more than one license and by requiring states to adopt testing and licensing standards for truck and bus drivers to check a person’s ability to operate the type of vehicle he/she plans to operate,” and in some cases states had to upgrade their licensing standards, according to the department.

A little more than a year in the making, the training school’s purpose is to make it easier for Vermonters untrained in driving big rigs, loaders or other commercial vehicles to be better prepared to take the DMV test.

  There’s the classroom training room, a 200-by-100 foot driving field behind the pellet company, and a practice dump truck and 14-wheeler with specially-installed pedals for the instructor.

 The infrastructure for the program came courtesy of Act 46 — a work force development grant adopted by the state’s Legislature last year with the intent of promoting job growth, said William Lucci, Stafford’s assistant director for Adult Technical Education.

And there are job prospects — Casella Waste Systems, Inc., of Rutland has added money to the program in hopes of recruiting new employees straight out of high school — having first dibs on any number of the 10 Stafford students that get accepted into the Class B commercial licensing program for free and pass.

For adults, the training school’s seven-week, 74-hour Class B program for dump trucks and school buses costs an estimated $2,500.  

The Class A and Class B licensing program combined costs $5,000. That program requires 154 hours or about four months and students who obtain a license can drive commercial liners.

The Vermont Department of Labor and Vermont Student Assistance Corporation have financial assistance available, Lucci said.

  All students are required to take a physical and drug test, the cost of which is reimbursed by the school if passed, he said.

  The majority of training is done in the classroom rather than on roads and highways — a curriculum designed by the state Department of Motor Vehicles, Lucci said.

Current students range in age from 21 to their mid-40s — some women, some students wanting a job after their senior year and some men searching for a new career after being let go or making the decision to do something new, according to Lucci and Patry.  

The job market in trucking is hopeful and the new school picked up where commercial licensing schools in Pittsford and North Springfield left off after shutting down, according to Nancy Burzon, executive director of the Rutland Region Workforce Investment Board.

”(Commercial licensing) takes a flawless driving record and the training is expensive, contributing to an insufficient number of drivers,” Burzon said.  

”In this economy, people are interested because the training doesn’t take that long, it’s in demand and (CDL licenses) are hard to come by in this area.  “

For more information on the Stafford Driver Training School, call Lucci at 770-1032 or for more information on CDL licensure, visit www.aot.state.vt.us.  

[email protected]

Students Link Up With Rutland Free Library For Highway Safety

 

 

   Students Highway Safety PhotoRecently, students from the Vermont Teen Leadership Safety Program Chapters in Proctor High School and Stafford Technical Center began a partnership with the Rutland Free Library in Rutland which is aimed at reducing excessive speed on roads and highways and the many crashes which result from speeding. At the winter meeting of the Vermont Teen Leadership Safety Program (VTLSP), an organization of high school students from about 40 Vermont schools, which focuses on highway safety issues, the students decided that they wanted to work on a project to reduce the incidence of speeding and the deaths and injuries resulting from speeding.

   They came up with a theme for the campaign, “Slow Down, Stick Around”. The theme would be printed on ribbons and would have a card explaining the risks of speeding attached. The plan originally was to disseminate these ribbons at highway rest areas and visitors centers, but when they were done, some additional venues were discussed- auto body and repair shops, chambers of commerce, and car dealers. Someone else recognized that the ribbons would make excellent book marks, and would tend to be used over and over, so libraries became sites to give out the ribbons and cards.

  Some of the facts involving speeding are: 36% of all fatal motorcycle crashes are speed related, as speed goes up, the likelihood of a fatality increases, and young males are the most likely to be involved in a fatal speed-related crash.

  The students involved in delivering the basket full of ribbons and cards to Dan Amesburry, the assistant director of the Rutland Free Library were: Taylor Trombley of Proctor High School and her VTLSP Advisor, Claire Molner, two students from Rutland High School’s GMTI Program, Jonathan Giffin and Cameo Bixby- Clemons, Lt. Kevin Geno of the Rutland City Police Department, Rutland County Sherriff Stephen Benard,  and two Stafford Technical Center students, Kayla Jones of Tinmouth, and Ashley Barnes of Rutland.

Photo:  Slow Down, Stick Around Rutland at the Rutland Free Library: Dan Amesburry (w/beard), Claire Molner, Jonathan Giffin, Lt. Kevin Geno, Ashley Barnes, Kayla Jones, and Taylor Trombley