submitted by Michael A. McCagg, TVHS Communications Coordinator
After four years of learning with the guidance of teachers, business leaders, experts and university professors, members of the Tech Valley High School Class of 2014 entered the “real world” during a ceremony on Saturday, June 21.
[private]The ceremony at the University at Albany Campus Center Ballroom on the Albany campus featured all of the pomp and circumstance of a traditional graduation ceremony, mixed with uniqueness of TVHS. For example, book-ending the 90 minute ceremony were bagpipers leading the procession of graduates into the ballroom and a rendition of a modern Chinese song by the TVHS chorus bidding the graduates adieu.
With an unofficial theme of pioneers, speaker after speaker heralded the graduates as being pioneers in education willing to undertake a new way of learning and sharing what they have learned with others. They also challenged the graduates to continue those pioneering ways to change the world.
TVHS Operating Board President Paul Puccio said, “Over the course of this year more than 300 educators … literally from across the globe came to visit TVHS. They don’t come to look at the building; yes, they want to talk to the teachers, but they come to listen to your children and grandchildren,” Puccio said.
“Your children and grandchildren became the teachers of other teachers,” he told those in attendance. “I am extraordinarily proud of what it is you are doing. You are pioneers, you are extraordinary in terms of what you have done. You have taught us a great deal.”
Fellow TVHS Board Member and President of the New York State School Boards Association, Lynne Lenhardt, carried on that theme.
“It’s so important that you don’t just sit back .. and I am sure none of you will, but it is so important that you be the change that you want in the world,” said Lenhardt.
And Principal Dan Liebert also spoke of the class as pioneers focused on changing the world.
Reading from the exit interviews each graduate took part in, Liebert said, “One of you said in your exit interview, ‘social justice is just as important a learning outcome as technological literacy. I have learned to use technology to change the world’ … It’s important you continue that idea, that message.”
Even the students’ speeches shared those sentiments.
“Every day, strive to be better than you were yesterday,” graduate Libby Cass of Stephentown said.
“This school has been the first step to success, and now we are about to open another chapter to hopefully change this world for the better,” graduate Mackenzie Stone of New Lebanon added.
And finally, graduate Troy O’Neill reminded his fellow graduates, “At Tech Valley we have gotten an excellent foundation in skills. As engaged citizens are all responsible not only for our community but to become living representations of what we want to see.”
The 21 graduates hailed from districts large and small, such as Guilderland and Berlin, as well as rural and urban, such as Cairo-Durham and Troy.
Some, like senior Libby Cass from the Berlin Central School District, are planning to study engineering in college; others, like Cullen Utermark, Schodack, and Thomas Gamsjager, Greenville, are looking for adventures outdoors. Utermark is pursuing a career as a ranger at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) while Gamsjager aspires to a career as an international expedition guide and will study at either SUNY Adirondack or SUNY Potsdam.
While the graduates have diverse career paths ahead of them – from engineer to nurse to expeditionary guide – they continue TVHS’ trend of producing graduates interested in careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Forty-two percent of the graduates have indicated they will choose a job in a STEM field.
By comparison, less than a quarter of high school students indicate they will pursue STEM careers.
The 2014 graduates almost universally credit TVHS with giving them skills not traditionally associated with schools, like how to present ideas to business leaders and how to work on a project with a team of peers.
“Thanks to Tech Valley, I have learned how to effectively talk to my peers and work toward a common team goal,” said Gamsjager.
Classmate Troy O’Neill, Coxsackie, concurred.
“I have learned how to work with diverse groups of people, and make our weaknesses (including my own) into strengths,” said O’Neill. He is pursuing a double major in philosophy and social inquiry at The New School (Eugene Lang College) in Manhattan.
The local TVHS graduates, followed by their home school districts are:
Josey Bartholomew, New Lebanon
Elizabeth Cass, Berlin
Layla Faulkner, Berlin
Casey Gordon, Averill Park
Nigel Krumdieck, Averill Park
Stefan Pedersen, Averill Park
Benjamin Rice, Averill Park
Mackenzie Stone, New Lebanon
Luke Van De Wal, Averill Park
Gabriel Vince, Hoosick Falls
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