Syracuse Stage performs a play written by Innovation Tech junior Luka Galle:
Friday, May 21, 2021
When you talk to Cazenovia junior Luka Galle , you might think of Amanda Gorman — the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate who thrilled a nation by reciting her poem, “The Hill we Climb,” at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration.
That’s because Luka, who attends OCM BOCES’ Innovation Tech, recently crafted her own poetry — a very moving, contemporary piece about the seven deadly sins — that will be performed live tonight by seven senior Syracuse University drama students at Syracuse Stage.
Luka’s poetry was picked for this prestigious honor as part of Syracuse Stage’s annual Young Playwrights Festival contest, which means her winning work was reviewed and critiqued ...
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237 CTE Scholars Inducted into the National Technical Honor Society:
May 11, 2021
A group of 237 high-performing students in the Career & Technical Education (CTE) and New Vision programs at OCM BOCES in Cortland and Onondaga counties were inducted into the National Technical Honor Society (NTHS) during ceremonies held in April at their respective schools.
Students who qualify must have an 85 average or higher, good attendance, and a teacher endorsement. Students must also demonstrate the core attributes of NTHS, which are symbolized with a candle lighting during the induction ceremony. The attributes include knowledge, skill, honesty, service, responsibility, scholarship, citizenship and leadership. During their upcoming graduations, students will wear their NTHS cords for their CTE & New Vision ceremonies and durine graduations ...
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Thank you, teachers! New Vision Criminal Justice assignment has students writing letters of gratitude:
Students in the New Vision Criminal Justice program at OCM BOCES recently finished a special project that happened to be a perfect fit for Teacher Appreciation Week.
Inspired by the touching thank-you cards he once received as a police officer, instructor Charlie Wilson tasked his students with identifying a favorite teacher, formulating questions, interviewing them, and writing them a detailed letter of gratitude for making a positive difference in their lives.
Here are just a few excerpts:
Tori Allen of Chittenango wrote about Spanish teacher Victoria Fragoso :
“I don’t even know where to start with this, Senorita Fragosa. You have changed my life in and out of school. I never really cared for school, ...
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OCM BOCES Annual Report highlights exceptional achievements of 2020:
You may not want to relive 2020, but the year challenged us in ways we will never forget.
The 2020 OCM BOCES Annual Report outlines the exceptional work our organization provided for our students and our component districts. Whether it was managing the abrupt shift to remote learning, helping educators with instructional technology, supporting our students’ social and emotional health, providing meals, purchasing devices, or re-opening schools in September, OCM BOCES was there to help.
The annual report and a video of our 2020 highlights were presented to school superintendents and Board of Education members who attended our annual meeting on April 7. Take a look at just a few of the many amazing accomplishments we achieved at OCM BOCES.
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Students at Seven Valleys pledge "service above self":
April 15, 2021
Ten students from Seven Valleys New Tech Academy in Cortland were inducted recently into the Rotary Interact Club, which now has 30 students committed to serving their community and promoting international understanding.
Students have embraced the club’s motto, “service above self,” and are participating in activities such as the annual river cleanup day, serving pancakes on Election Day, ringing the bell for the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle campaign, helping Rotary members at their chicken barbecue, boxing items for Toys for Tots, and volunteering for the Cortland County spring cleanup day.
This year, when the pandemic limited some of these activities, students connected remotely with another Rotary Interact Club in ...
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Working for districts: CNYRIC provides essential help with contact tracing:
Finding Creative Solutions: The Central New York Regional Information Center Helps Districts with Contact Tracing
When schools reopened their doors in the fall of 2020, administrators struggled with the need to provide effective contact tracing, often spending extensive amounts of time trying to reach anyone who had come in close contact with an individual who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Districts often had to pull up class lists and cross-reference them by hand, spending as much as half the workday trying to effectively trace one positive result.
Enter the Educational Data Services (EDS) team at the Central New York Regional Information Center. The EDS team wanted to help districts tackle whatever challenges they faced with reopening schools. ...
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February is #CTEMonth!:
Celebrating #CTEMonth in February
February is Career & Technical Education (CTE) month, when OCM BOCES and schools across the country celebrate the programs that prepare students for the workforce and further their education.
Once considered an educational route for just those students seeking to build vocational skills, CTE is now a pathway for any and all students who are looking to get a jump-start on a wide variety of careers as well as an opportunity to become well-prepared for college, even earning college credits while in high school.
At OCM BOCES, we’ve taken this mission even further with unique, business-embedded programs at WCNY, Driver’s Village, Tracey Road Equipment and more. Students learn in classrooms within these businesses, but also ...
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Seven Valleys students learn sign language to communicate with new custodian:
When students at Seven Valleys New Tech Academy learned their new daytime custodian was deaf, they were eager to learn how to better communicate with him. Students wanted to find a way to not only welcome Ryan and thank him for the work he was doing to keep their school clean, but also help him acclimate to the day shift. As a result, Seven Valleys set up a Zoom session with the Child Life Team at Golisano Children’s Hospital to allow them to do just that.
Golisano’s Kendall Malkin helped provide insight to Seven Valleys students on what it was like to live without the ability to hear. Malkin also served as an interpreter for Ryan, allowing students and staff to learn more about him and his lifestyle.
The session also helped students learn some ...
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OCM BOCES names new CNYRIC director:
OCM BOCES is pleased to announce that Chantal M. Corbin, a 14-year technology coordinator and principal in the Fabius-Pompey Central School District, will become the new director of the Central New York Regional Information Center (CNYRIC) as of Jan. 25.
Corbin will replace CNYRIC Director Pam Mazzaferro, who is retiring Jan. 8.
OCM BOCES District Superintendent Matthew L. Cook, Ed.D., said Corbin is an excellent candidate for the CNYRIC position because of her extensive experience in educational technology, her familiarity with OCM BOCES services and the needs of local districts, and her passion for utilizing technology in a way that will best support student learning.
“Ms. ...
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Building a “Bridge to Brave” at Innovation Tech:
As schools reopened in the middle of a pandemic, facilitators at Innovation Tech wanted to empower students with a meaningful project, one that would address their social and emotional needs and also connect them with like-minded students.
As a result, an orientation project called “Bridge to Brave” started with this driving question:
“2020 is a year unlike any other, with students around the world adapting to new educational norms. How can I, as a New Tech student at Innovation Tech, empower myself and others to create a brave space and develop strategies in order to succeed?”
Students jumped in with all sorts of activities and strategies to help themselves and their classmates cope with the stresses of the new year.
They started ...
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Fresh look, mobile-friendly website rolls out before the holidays for OCM BOCES:
I f you opened a store on the main street in your town, you’d want the outside to be appealing. You’d want your main entrance — the front door — to be inviting. You’d also want the store itself to be friendly, welcoming and easy to navigate.
Those are the reasons we decided to give our own storefront — our OCM BOCES website — a facelift.
During the week of Dec. 21, we will be rolling out a new design for ocmboces.org that is clean and less cluttered. The site will have a significant new feature — mobile responsiveness — that makes most of our pages easy to view on a smartphone.
A big thank you goes to the Central New York Regional Information Center (Bethany Bak, Cris Moore ...
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OCM BOCES welder makes history at local business:
If you happen to drive by a new construction site at 2775 Erie Boulevard East, not far from Thompson Road, you might spot a welder bundled in several layers of clothes, sitting on a beam about 15 feet above the ground. The welder is 18-year-old Alivia Allen, a 2020 graduate of OCM BOCES who made her mark this fall as the first female employee in the erector division of JPW Companies in Syracuse.
Alivia is working on a two-story office building for Crouse Medical Practice. She started the job Nov. 9 and spent the first few weeks training and earning a pair of certifications in vertical and overhead welding. Now she’s up on the beams, measuring, bolting, welding, and pinning down decks of galvanized steel. Sometimes, she works in frigid temperatures ...
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Virtual college visits rise to a whole new level:
Another silver lining has emerged amid all the challenges surrounding the pandemic: At our Cortlandville Campus, students in Career & Technical Education (CTE) programs are participating in virtual college visits that give them better access to college faculty.
In one of the biggest presentations, students in seven CTE programs were able to talk to faculty members at Alfred State College through a pair of online college visits on Nov. 13. Normally, students would not have access to a large number of college faculty members if they were visiting the college in-person or simply asking questions of Alfred State Admissions Director Kandi Geibel, who visits the OCM BOCES campus each year.
This year, however, a pair of special Zoom meetings allowed juniors and seniors ...
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News Channel 9 features CTE program at Tracey Road:
NewsChannel 9 recently visited Tracey Road Equipment in East Syracuse to learn more about the new OCM BOCES and Tracey Road embedded Career and Technical Education program . The the two-year Heavy Equipment Operations and Diesel Repair Technology program, which launched in September, offers kids hands-on experience with heavy equipment and diesel technology.
Learn more about the program and read the story by visiting their website or check out the video below.
Thank you to News Channel 9 and Julia LeBlanc for this great story!
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OCM BOCES welcomes new District Superintendent:
Please join us in welcoming Matthew L. Cook, Ed.D., as the new District Superintendent of OCM BOCES.
Matt comes to us from the Newark Central School District in Wayne County, about 40 minutes east of Rochester, where he has served as superintendent since 2013.
The OCM BOCES Board of Education voted unanimously for Cook at its Oct. 15 meeting. He officially begins at OCM BOCES on Nov. 2.
OCM BOCES Board of Education President Wayne Brownson said Matt stood out among a group of highly qualified candidates “because of his effective leadership skills, his extensive educational background, and a proven record of making decisions that are best for students while also being committed to his staff and community.”
Prior ...
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Innovation Tech staff sew masks for students:
Walking into Innovation Tech on the first day of school, students were not only greeted with waves and virtual hugs, but also a hallway filled with tables of masks in a variety of colors, sizes and patterns. Working together, the staff at Innovation Tech had sewn 537 masks for students to keep, allowing each student to take five masks to use throughout the week.
The idea for making masks came from Facilitator Martha FitzPartrick. Like many people at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Martha did not know how to make face masks, but after a friend asked her to make them for essential employees at a local Walgreens, Martha, a fifth-generation quilter, was up for the challenge. She quickly began researching patterns, fabrics and elastic.
After completing her initial ...
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Phil Grome selected as new Assistant Superintendent for Administration:
OCM BOCES Appoints Phil Grome as New Assistant Superintendent for Administration
July 10, 2020
Phil Grome, a 27-year educational leader, has been selected to be the new assistant superintendent for administration at Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES, a position that makes him part of the organization’s senior leadership team.
The OCM BOCES Board of Education voted unanimously for Grome’s appointment at its monthly meeting July 9. He begins his new position today, July 10.
Grome’s tenure at OCM BOCES has focused on leading a wide variety of instructional programs for students in Career & Technical Education (CTE), New Vision, Career Development, ...
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Virtual celebrations honor hundreds of BOCES grads:
Hundreds of BOCES graduates cross the stage in June ceremonies
Carloads of families and friends carrying BOCES graduates arrived one-by-one this past month for seven days of drive-up ceremonies that allowed our students to walk across an outside stage to receive their diplomas or certificates.
Videos of each ceremony can be found at ocmboces.org/graduation2020 . The site also provides a full listing of all students, awards and programs, as well as links to thousands of photos. Videos will be premiering at noon on June 25-26.
OCM BOCES would like to extend a big congratulations to all of our graduates and a thank you to all of our staff, parents and other supporters who helped our graduates through an especially challenging year.
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