Kindness of Students

There have been two awesome incidents of kindness demonstrated by our students within the past week that I have seen.

1. The picture above shows a project of one of our Welding students, Tyler Kibler. During the rotation, a student was unable to spend time in the Weld shop due to a medical condition. Tyler took it upon himself to pair up with the student and show him the computer work that goes into designing a piece to fabricate. During this, he got to know the student and his interests. Tyler then designed the above project and with the help of a few of his classmates, made this piece for the new student.

2. At the Homecoming Dance on Saturday night, four Health Assisting students found a significant amount of cash on a table and turned it in to one of the chaperones.

Sometimes we educators get frustrated by the poor choices our students make, and I thought that on this Friday morning in particular, it would be a nice time to highlight some acts of kindness from our students.

Welding Fun

One day late last week, I visited the Welding shop and got see great things! The top picture shows Mr. Seitzer demonstrating a technique to the 9th grade rotation students. The second picture shows a project that Jake Watson is currently working on. This is the floor of a sander that disintegrated over years of use. Jake is repairing it and creating a new floor to put the sander back on the road for the winter. Great project!!!

York Country Day Boys' Soccer win!

These two pictures show the celebration as the York Country Day boys' soccer team (with some York Tech students on the team, like Bruce Espinoza -Auto Tech) won against York High. The final goal was scored with 35 seconds left. It was so exciting!

And Homecoming Weekend is now officially over. The team played hard at the game, and the students had a great time at the dance. It was a great Saturday here at Tech. Thanks to all who made it a great weekend.

Great Things At Tech

Wow.... such a great end to the week! We had a fantastic pep rally yesterday afternoon to celebrate our fall athletes (many of whom are M/T students) and our homecoming court. This year, we have 2 students on the homecoming court - Deante Weldon, Auto Tech and Nick Houston, Diesel Tech.

On another note, Mr. Heidler (Collision Repair Instructor) shared with me that Jesse Blair achieved the highest score EVER seen on the Pre-NOCTI exam. The NOCTI exam in the spring will test the students technical abilities and readiness for a career in that area.

Another post to follow tonight or tomorrow, hopefully with pictures from the homecoming football game and dance.

OAC Meetings and Parent/Teacher Conferences

Wow!! What a big day it was at YCST today! All students were dismissed at 12:42 so that all teachers could hold parent/teacher conferences in the afternoon. Then, the technical teachers held their Occupational Advisory Committee (OAC) meetings (which began with a wonderful dinner, pictured above). These committees advise the technical teachers in what's needed in industry, and the teachers talk to the committee members about what the school is doing to prepare our students.

The academic teachers hosted more parent/teacher conferences in the evening. It was awesome to see all the visitors down in the Man/Tran academy today.

Spirit Week and Assembly Line Welding

One project that Mr. Yarrison's morning group worked on recently required an assembly line-type process. Each student had a particular part of the process in order to mass produce rain gauges. The student above was the final inspector of the products.

One reminder to all.... we have now entered Spirit Week! Today is "wear your favorite team" sweatshirt, shirt or jersey. If students choose not to participate, they need to be wearing their regular technical dress for the day. For me, it would be "Go Steelers"! (or York Tech Spartans, of course!). I will try to post pictures this week of some of our Man/Tran students who participate in the Spirit Week days. All this leads to the Homecoming Pep Rally on Friday, the game on Saturday, and the dance on Saturday night. It's an exciting week here at York Tech!

Fixing My Car in Auto Shop

The picture is a little blurry, but what you see here are some part-time students (those who attend their home schools, like Central York, for all classes but come over to Tech to take 1 class in the afternoon) working on my car. The benefit of me having a piece of junk car is that the Automotive students get LOTS of experience working on various types of problems.

We really appreciate our 4 participating districts in sending part-time students. Those districts are: Central, York City, York Suburban and Dallastown. Our school is enhanced by having these additional students in the building, and it's great that we can provide them the opportunity to take courses here.

Cross Country Senior Night

Last night, I had the privilege of participating in the senior night at the cross country meet. Thanks to Coach Snell for inviting me to be a part of it!

The picture above shows Coach meeting with the boy's team getting them inspired to run by asking them who they would run this race for today. Our M/T student on the team is Christian Marks, who said that he would run the race for his father (our very own Graphic Arts teacher, Mr. Marks.... how sweet).

The boys' team ended up winning against York Catholic (by 1 point!) and Biglerville in the meet.

JV Football

Yesterday afternoon, I attended the JV Football game against Hanover. The mighty Spartans fought well, and I saw a couple amazing plays from defensive back, Riquann Williams (A/H). He had a great tackle on a pass reception and an interception in the next offensive series from Hanover. Many Man/Tran students play on this team and showed great effort as well. Aaron Callis and Henry Lillich, both Man/Tran, varsity football team players, also showed up to support the JV's.

Man/Tran Students Do Like Math!!

And they are good at it!! Take a look at 4 of our finest upper classmen working collaboratively on a math assignment in Mrs. Abbott's class on Friday. This school day was only for juniors and seniors. Senior students presented their graduation projects in the technical area if they hadn't done so already, and the academic teachers planned special projects for them to work on in the absence of their peers.

Thanks to Mrs. Abbott for providing a great learning opportunity for our students on Friday (and thanks for providing me with the picture)!

Student-to-Student Learning

Sometimes teachers fall into the trap of thinking that the only way for students to learn is for them to provide all the instruction. The show of a true educator is when you can walk into a classroom area and watch students instructing each other, as in the Collision Repair technical program above. On the right is a 12th grade student demonstrating some of the techniques to a new rotation student. Kudos to Mr. Heidler for preparing his students well enough to teach their peers.

Metal Machine Shop

On Friday, I spent a little time down in the Precision Metal Machine technical area. In the top picture, one of the 12th grade students is working on an individual project. In the bottom picture, Mr. Jamison is demonstrating and allowing rotation students to work with one of the commonly used machines in the technical area. In the academy, we have approximately 3 rotations left. Then, at the end of the marking period, rotation students will complete a culminating project and determine their top 3 choices of shops in the academy. If they have completed all the rotation activities to the best of their ability, it is likely they will get into their technical area of choice.

TGIF

It's been a busy week here at Tech. Yesterday, we had the early dismissal due to flooding. On Wed, our students participated well in the 4Sight testing, and today, students who didn't finish or were absent will be making up the test.

I look forward to spending a lot of time in the shops today, so hopefully, there will be a picture or two for me to upload over the weekend that show student projects.

FYI - on October 8th, all 11th and 12th grade students will attend school for graduation project work. All 9th and 10th graders DO NOT attend school on this day.