The student assistants perform a variety of tasks. They act as scribes for the technicians, recording and documenting the particulars of this installation. They assist in childcare, so the technicians can do the installations without interruptions. The assistants also help the technician as required in any other part of the process. It is a win win situation for everyone. The technicians get assistance and are able to focus on getting the task done, and the students get to serve their community, learn new skills, and make professional contacts. The students who have been involved in the last two clinics are Cierra Phelps and Haley Cotrupi, juniors from Mill River Union High School, and Kayla Stewart, a junior from west Rutland High School. All three girls are students in the Stafford Technical Center SADD Chapter, and are enrolled in the Public Safety Services Program at Stafford.

Photo: l-r:  Haley Cotrupi and Cierra Phelps help at car safety seat installation

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

Team 6 1

This post was submitted by spi.

This post was submitted by spi.

    The event was supported by a variety of community businesses- the Rutland Grand Union, which provided sausages and lettuce, the Rutland Hannaford Store, whose donation provided paper goods, and cutlery, the Rutland Priced Chopper, which provided a gift card, that provided salad dressing, olive oil, and many other items, the Ponderosa Restaurant, which provided a large tossed salad and chicken nuggets, and Fitz-Vogt, Inc and Meals on Wheels, which provided desserts to the group. Stafford Technical Center’s Culinary Arts Program provided a gross of dinner rolls and whipped butter. The Stafford Technical Center SADD Program, and an anonymous donor, provided all the pasta, canned tomatoes and meatballs for the event. The Green Mountain Missionary Baptist Church members gave each kid at the dinner a goodie bag of candy. 

     Many other local businesses provided other gifts for the attendees- McDonald’s gave out 50 extra value meal coupons, Taco Ball gave away 100 coupons for free tacos, Burger King gave away certificates for dinners for the family, KFC gave away family chicken dinners, Subway gave away gift certificates, and Wendy’s provided free food to other lucky door prize winners. Steve Lulek from the Green Mountain Rock Climbing Center offered free use of his facility to family members as long as their soldier was deployed. The Rutland Bowlerama also graciously donated a number of coupons for free bowling. Everyone at the dinner got at least three door prizes.

    The volunteers also came from a variety of organizations, although the Rutland Italian American Club provided the largest group. Their members included Chef Luigi Illiano and his helper John D’Esposito, Matt Polli and Mary Beth Dewey, IAC President David Chioffi, Eilene D’Esposito, George Kimmel, Ingrid Gallo, Peg Dombro, Jackie Kulig, Annie Schoenknecht, Marge and Bill Bloomer, Anthony Vitigliano, and Shelley DuPrey. The Stafford Technical Center SADD Chapter sent members Ashley Barnes, Jackie Fitz-Gerald and Kyle Lenher, who acted as servers. Two employees from Meals on Wheels, Penny Jones and Shauna Woods, volunteered their services. Mrs. Jones also brought with her three volunteers from her church, the Green Mountain Missionary Baptist Church- her husband Tim Jones, Christa Pike, and her pastor, Bryan Teer.

   The dinner was a resounding success and both the Guard Family Support Staff and a number of Guard family members expressed an interest in doing an event like this in the future.  Given the sacrifices that the Guard members and their families are making, it is not surprising that so many businesses and organizations wanted to be involved in supporting the Rutland Italian American Club’s event.

The program first took root when entrepreneur John Casella of Casella Waste Systems in Rutland approached the school, offering financial and other support to create a program that would train CDL Class B drivers; a Class B license is needed to drive a number of the large trucks used by Casella’s company.

Class B license holders may drive vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing a vehicle not in excess of 10,000 pounds of the gross vehicle weight.

The program quickly gained interest recruiting its third group of youths, said Lyle Jepsen, school director. Casella lets the program use of one of the company rear-end-loading vehicles to practice with, and has donated about $50,000 to Stafford over a three-year period.

His ingenuity and generosity have made Stafford the only high school in the state with a truck school. “All Casella asks is an opportunity to pitch Casella to students once they graduate,” he said.

Taking the notion of CDL training from idea to fruition required seeking direction from the state Department of Motor Vehicles’ Marty Dexter,  commercial driver training schools and third-party testing coordinator. Among the physical qualifications was a practice yard no smaller than a 200-foot by 100-foot site equipped with a berm.

Students in the program receive 18 hours of driving time, nine hours in the practice yard and nine hours on the road.

Kent Belden of Belden Construction offered use of his facility in North Clarendon, converting the existing structure to meet the school’s needs and assisting in developing a building-sharing arrangement with co-tenant VermontWoodPellet Company.
Stafford used the celebration to announce that the school is now “opening bothBand A (big rigs) classes. Although the state of Vermont provided CDL requirements, it was Bill Lucci, Stafford adult education/evening division, director who wrote the curricula for both A and B licensure.

Lucci also noted support from a number of businesses in the greater community including Kinney

Motors and the state’s Act 46 for adult technical education as the program expands to include both truck-driving training for adults and automobile driving training for adults who may not know how to drive. The program uses “not a dime from Rutland County tax payers,” Lucci said.

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DECA’s School-based Enterprise (SBE) Certification Program was developed to provide recognition for outstanding achievement by school-based enterprises and to motivate SBEs to strive for excellence and to grow.

School stores can be certified at three levels: Bronze, Silver or Gold.  In order to apply for the certification, SBEs must submit extensive documentation showing how they have achieved set standards that are outlined in the Certification Guidelines.  After the documentation is submitted, a Review Committee evaluates the documentation to determine which level of certification has been achieved.

 DECA is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit student organization preparing its membership for careers in marketing, management and entrepreneurship. DECA operates in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, Canada, Germany and Mexico through charters held by each state’s/province’s department of education. DECA has over 185,000 members nationwide.

Complete information about DECA’s School-based Enterprise Certification Program can be found at, www.schoolbasedenterprises.org.

 Renovation Project:  Jobs Now and for the Future

We are at a juncture in our decision making on the continued renovations to the out buildings and to aging infrastructure in several of our program areas.  It has been impossible to miss the daily articles about the economy and State budget difficulties.  Add to this the recent sentiments of the Commissioner of Education, who is recommending further belt tightening, and one might think that the time is not ripe to ask voters for money.  I would argue that now may be the right time. 

As I watched the renovations taking place to the Power Mechanics / Forestry building it was not hard to see that local contractors are hiring local employees.  Having been in education for many years in this area, I should not have been surprised when many of the workers reintroduced themselves to me as their former principal at their high school or as a former student of the Technical Center.  They shared stories and brought me up to date on their families including children that they are now very proud to call their own. Running a close second to the pride in their upbringing and their families, was the pride in the work that they do. 

This made me realize that the Stafford project is a bootstrap stimulus package funded by Vermonters for Vermonters. Gone are the days when we can rely only upon the State or Federal government to be the primary funding source for a local project. 

My job is to seek support for the Stafford bond issue.  In so doing, I will suggest that the Stafford renovation project is an opportunity to put local dollars to work in a manner that will support our local businesses and simultaneously create educational opportunities for people to enhance their training and skills for future employment.  The project is one that supports jobs now and helps support Vermont’s future employees. 

For example, the benefits of renovating the Electrical/ Plumbing building extend beyond the daytime high school program.  The facility will be set up to be a training site for boiler technicians who must now travel to White River Junction for training and certification.  The facility will also be the future training site for any alternative fuel and/or renewable energy education that is undertaken by Stafford Technical Center.  

Why now?  Stafford Technical Center was constructed in the late 1970’s.  As part of that construction two temporary storage facilities were built, one for equipment and the other to house a forestry program.  Over time a majority of the main building has undergone replacement of the heating and ventilation system, roof replacement as well as other maintenance and health and safety updates.  Each of these changes has been accomplished within the regular budget in combination with a major Federal grant.      

Because of the age of the out buildings, work has begun to renovate them so that they will be available for use for the next 40 years.  The STC Regional Advisory Board, with support from the Rutland Public Schools Board of School Commissioners has completed Phase I of the overall facilities plan. 

Phase I

Summer 2009      Renovate Power/Mechanics Forestry Building   

September – October 2009      Work with NBF Architects

1. Design cost for Phases II and III
2. Project cost for Phases II and III

December 2009    Budget including first financing payment

Funding was proactively managed to allow for the work accomplished in Phase I.  However, Phase II will be more costly.  Estimates are now available for completion of the project.  Ed Clark from NBF has compiled information that suggests that Phases II and III should cost approximately $1,368,953.

Phase II

Project components:                                            

Summer 2010     

1. Renovate Electrical Plumbing and Creative Structures building:  internal renovations, new exterior and roof.
2. Upgrade Automotive Technology heating and ventilation, floor epoxy and paint as needed.
3. Convert Welding Lab and Room 107 to Power Mechanics use.
4. Upgrade Automotive Refinishing heating and ventilation, floor epoxy and paint as needed.
5. Update Campus Common grounds store, flooring, counters, doorway to Heritage Family Credit Union.
6. Fire safety and code requirement updates in main building.

Phase III

Project components:

Spring 2011        

Interactive Television will relocate, freeing up space for main building interior renovations and program movement that will result in Cosmetology opening in the fall of 2011.

Summer 2011     

1.  Convert rooms 114,116,118 into Cosmetology.                          

2.  Move CAD to room 208.                                                              

3.  Move Music to the vacated Interactive Television space.

4.  Move academics to room 108.

Fall 2011    Cosmetology opens                          

The FY11 budget includes the initial payment on a bond for the completion of the project.  Payments would be spread over 15 years.  This project must be voted on (the bond) by Rutland City taxpayers because STC is legally part of Rutland City Schools.  However, as a technical center STC is not funded like other Rutland City schools and its costs do not have as direct an impact on local property tax rates.  This results from technical centers being funded primarily through direct State aid.  What is not funded by direct State aid is shared pro-rata from all sending towns or cities, of which Rutland City is one, albeit the largest single “sender”, accounting for about 25% of Stafford’s enrollment.  All other towns represent 75% of total enrollment and they pay the same per student cost that Rutland City pays for each of their enrolled students.  As a result, this is truly a County-wide project that is State and county-wide financed, but voted on by Rutland City voters for the benefit of all.

Is now the time to act?  The answer to that question may come from how we answer the following questions.   Each, of course, is a leading question.  

1. Are we comfortable with the teaching and learning environment that we currently use?
2. Can we respond rapidly to the current needs of our students and the needs of our local economy in the space that is now available to us?
3. Does our current educational space position Stafford Technical Center in a flexible manner for the changes required of us in the future?
4. Can we afford not to act?

For more information, contact Lyle Jepson, Director at 802-770-1030.

Starting her teaching over 40 years ago, Nancy was instrumental in the transition from typewriting to keyboarding at Stafford Technical Center and Rutland High School, as well as teaching Shorthand, Typing I and II, Keyboarding, Computer Applications, E Commerce, and Accounting as well as other business related skills.

Because of her love for Accounting and Business Principles, Nancy has inspired students to major in these areas after graduating high school, and consider business careers they may otherwise have not if not influenced by Nancy’s passion for accounting.

In addition to teaching, Nancy has been a long term member of VBTA and has been an advisor for FBLA.  Receiving her business education degree from Castleton State College, this business teacher exemplifies a native Vermonter who has been educated, worked, and lives in the Green Mountain State.

Nancy is now retired and we are all very proud of her accomplishments and congratulate her on this award.

Pictured Left to Right:  Melissa Connor, VBTA President and Nancy Deuel.

So what’s next for Mike Delancey? Not being one to rest for long, he is already putting feelers out there to land his first gig as a driver. “Ideally, I would love to be able to do day runs for awhile so I can be home a few nights a week with my wife and kids,” said Delancey. “But somewhere down the road I would like to do some long distance hauling for a national company to make some big money.”  Indeed, Swift Transportation Company, Inc. which is the primary mover of freight for major box store retailers like Target has already expressed an interest in putting Delancey to work—even in a less than healthy economy. But regardless of what lies ahead for Mike Delancey in the weeks ahead, the staff at the Stafford Driver Training School know that Mike will be an eager and positive ambassador of a program that put him “on the road” to a successful career as a professional truck driver.