Tech Center Graduates Ready for Next Chapter of Their Lives

Thanks to Ellen Lane at BOCES for sharing this news!  for detailed instructions on posting your own announcements on Patch.

Watch out world. Future engineers, nurses, fashion designers, chefs, graphic artists, builders, environmental scientists and physicians graduated last night from Tech Center in Yorktown.

In all, 425 students from 18 local school districts graduated from 42 programs of study including Advertising Art & Design, Animation and Motion Graphics, Baking and Pastry Arts, Automotive Repair, Law Enforcement, Cosmetology, Culinary Arts and Masonry, to name a few. Students also graduated from the highly competitive, New Visions Honors programs in Engineering, Education, Environmental Science and Health.

"Although we are here celebrating your accomplishments," Superintendent James Langlois told the students, families, faculty and staff members, "We are really celebrating the beginning of your next phase of life. Are you ready?"

To which, the students enthusiastically responded “We’re ready!”

Nicole Loscri, a senior at John Jay High School and Tech valedictorian, talked about how the Tech Center had transformed her as a student from one who felt “swallowed” at her home school and wasn’t reaching her potential, to a student who had found her niche and blossomed in the Fashion Design and Merchandising program at Tech.  

Mahopac’s Stephanie Tock, the class Salutatorian who completed the New Visions Education program, gave her fellow classmates several pieces of advice. “Be yourself. Be happy. Don’t shut people out. Smile a lot. Take chances. Be true to yourself. And remember: this is your time to shine.”

Kate Mathews, a senior from Hendrick Hudson High School studying Auto Body, said her years at BOCES helped turn an interest into a career.

“I know that I’m in a male-dominated field, but here I felt no judgment and only encouragement,” she said of the BOCES program. “I can envision myself doing this for the rest of my life.”

Finally, Career Academy Principal Stephen Lowery told the students that he only had one request to make of the students as they graduated: “Remember us – because each and every one of you was special to us.”