PHOTOS: Deputy Mayor Albert Akerman and BOE member Yoni Silver were on hand as the Lakewood High School hosted their first ever Vocational Career Fair today in conjunction with the Ocean County Vocational Technical School.
As part of a team of Lakewood educators and Community leaders, Ms. Marcy Paturzo, Director of Guidance for the Lakewood School District and Ms. Jessica Kant, Guidance Counselor/Vocational Counselor of the Lakewood High School have been working together with the staff and administration of the OCVTS to put together this Career day for the students of the Lakewood High School.
Booths with various programs were set up in the Lakewood High School Media center for all 9th and 10th grade students to visit. The students were able to ask questions, learn about the various equipment, and even experiment with many things. Some of the programs displayed included: Aviation Aerospace Technology, Architectural Design, Computer service repair, Plumbing, Culinary, Auto Tech, and many others.
One hundred and fifty applications which were brought to the school for this career day, were taken by about 11AM, and organizers say they hope to increase the number of spots available for Lakewood students in the future.
“Programs like these, in addition to their academic courses at the High School, will give our students more options and motivate them to succeed in school” says Ms. Marcy Paturzo. “Students will have yet another tool to lead them successfully into their future.”
Paturzo added, “We are Extremely excited for the students of Lakewood. This is something that will benefit our students by giving those interested additional career paths to pursue which will prepare them for post graduate success. We have a great team in place who are truly dedicated to the students. Mr. Al Gilson, Principal of Lakewood High School is also working with the many involved to eventually bring vocational courses to Lakewood High School. Superintendent Lydia Silva has been a huge help and has been to many meeting to push forward this agenda.”
Simcha Greenwald, who was very instrumental in bringing the Vocation program to Lakewood, also thanked Senator Singer for leading the way and bringing the Freeholders and particularly liaison to OCVTS, Joe Vicari, on board.
“This has been ongoing and we are hopeful that there is a whole lot that the future will bring”, Greenwald says.
Greenwald also thanked Deputy Mayor Isaac Akerman and BOE member Yoni Silver for their involvement and assistance in getting the program off the ground, and for attending today’s event.
“We also thank Superintendent Bill Hoey of the OCVTS and Assistant Superintendent Nancy Weber for all of their help in working with Lakewood”, Greenwald said. TLS.
Isn’t it strange that they are looking at vocational courses now when there was a time Lakewood had all those classes in the High school.Shop,cooking electricity and so forth, now someone wants to bring them all back. Is there money to put all the classes in place?
I think it is really a good idea for the students to have choices for their future.
Yes, last year the high school had an amazing automotive program, which was cut because according to Silva (and i recall seeing an article quotingthis comment) im sure the board minutes can be checked. if students were interested in those programs they can attend vocational school. As a single mother of boys in the honors/AP program at LHS I encouraged my boys to take the course to have basic knowledge about cars. It saddens me how the programs have been taken away. Wasn’t such a great idea.
I agree with #2, in the past lakewood had great vocational programs but they have all been dropped. Silva didn’t see a need to keep them!
Now, once again, they are looking to bring them back. New equiptment will be needed. So short sighted of the administration in this town!
The point is that there are programs and there is money for these programs. They are funded by the County and the money is given to Ocean County Vocational School. What they are trying to do is to work together to bring these programs to our students at no cost to the District.
Now that makes sense.
Every student, boy, girl, public, private should take a semester of auto shop and home economics. Learning how to fix a busted radiator hose and sew are basics in life.
It’s ashame the school got rid of all the shop classes and their equiptment and now the bell goes off in their heads and they realize kids need these classes because not everyone is college prep. They were great electives to take in HS even if you were planning on going to college or not. Many classmates of mine have started thriving businesses after having a successful learning experience in a “shop class” at LHS.
They are not bringing the programs back to Lakewood High School they were handing out applications to students for Ocean County Vocational Technical School. They have done this for years, in 10th grade OCVTS came and I applied and was accepted for 11th and 12th grade. Personally I think it was better to go out of district half of the day. Lakewood’s vocational programs would allow anyone in and didn’t kick out the students who were disruptive or that were only there to complete their elective. With OCVTS you must apply and be accepted and if you didn’t preform well or behave you were kicked out of the program. This leads to classes with students who want to be there and want to learn. Whether or not they went into the vocation upon graduation everyone I know that went to an OCVTS program or academy enjoyed their time there. I hope Lakewood High School students continue to take advantage of this great county school.
My husband went to Lakewood High School, class of 76 he went to the vocational school in Toms River, I think this is a great idea bringing it back what if a child can’t afford college or just does not want to go at least the can get a vocation and get a job.
This is a terriffic idea! Now maybe this can also be brought to the Yeshivos!!!!!!!!!
Learning Torah is very important but not every bochur can sit and learn. It would be wonderful for our bochurim to know that there are other options for them to do, all within the realm of Torah and they are NOT failures if they cannot sit and learn all day.
It would be nice to have these programs at the girls school also.
Hatzlochoh Rabbah.
The last board meeting the members suggested wanting to bring back the shop programs. VOTech has always been an option for kids to go to.
Why do you tell us about these things after they happen. if u got me a super_talented lakewood high student, I would totally hire them for a summer internship. lets all work together to make lakewood a better place.
little-by little every thing was “cut”, some due to lack of interest of the students, or due to budget cuts,
I hope this gets of the ground, works, my kids took some of the the
vocational courses, and 2 made a career of their learning, but all of
them became capable of doing for themselves, due to some experience
they received