Southampton School District is considering four new vocational programs to add to its high school roster — and, if approved, one will be the first of its kind in New York State.
Tentatively titled “Clamming and Shellfish Harvesting Business,” the one-year course would tie into the district’s marine biology program, explained Superintendent of Schools Nicholas Dyno, building on its successful fish hatchery program while adding a new component: shellfish.
“It would be a unique program that would also teach you Shinnecock history and culture as part of the clamming business, and meet the needs of our students,” he said last week at a Board of Education meeting. “It would really reach some of our disaffected students who aren’t as into the high school as they can be, because they’re more interested in fishing than they are in attending high school.”
The push for vocational programming at the high school began about four or five years ago, the administrator recalled, while reviewing a performance report with the board. They noticed the college-bound students were performing well and learners in need were receiving special services — but there was a group in the “middle of the road,” he said, “who really didn’t know what they wanted to do beyond high school, except they knew they needed to go to work.”
In 2019, the district launched its first vocational program, Building Trades/Carpentry, in partnership with Eastern Suffolk BOCES. After hitting pause during the COVID-19 pandemic, the course is now at full capacity with a waiting list, Dyno reported, and it even inspired an after-school carpentry club. Some graduates have been accepted into unions, he said, and landed jobs with building firms.
“Carpentry is alive and well and thriving in the high school,” he said.
This fall marked the first year that the district has offered a new vocational program since, though it is admittedly off to a “rocky start,” Dyno said. The Medical Assistant Program, in concert with Eastern Suffolk BOCES and Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, saw an initial enrollment of eight students, but their teacher dropped out about two weeks before the start date. The students have been reprogrammed and are starting off at a vocational program in Riverhead until a new teacher is hired for the hospital class, he said.
Despite that hurdle, the district is pitching two future offerings. The first, an Early Childhood Education program with Eastern Suffolk BOCES and Wuneechanuck Shinnecock Preschool, would reconfigure some of its space into a classroom and open its school as a laboratory, Dyno said. New York State has already approved the curriculum, he said, and the start date could be as early as next September for 10th- through 12th-graders.
The district also has identified culinary arts and horticulture and landscape design as potential areas of focus for future vocational programs, Dyno said.
The Clamming and Shellfish Harvesting Business is still in the foundational stage, he said, and wouldn’t get off the ground until 2025. The development would include locating potential funding sources for program development, as well as a curriculum developer to work on the scope and sequence for approval from New York State.
“There are no approved [Career and Technical Education] programs in the state that offer this,” Dyno explained. “There are fish hatchery, but there are none with shellfish. Eastern Suffolk BOCES is very interested in piloting with us this program, to get it approved by the state and to be able to offer it here.”
Michelle Trauring on Sep 27, 2023