There is a new club that has been introduced to AHS called “SkillsUSA.” This club focuses on industrial tech skills used in everyday life. The club advisor ,Noah Widrowicz says he is “extremely excited” to be able to run this club. After FCCLA and FBLA were introduced to our school this fall he decided that he wanted to offer a club for his tech students.
Widrowicz said, “Think of it like the FFA of Industrial Tech.” They started this club almost 2 months ago and as of now they have about 10-15 student participants. They compete, attend conferences, put on fundraisers, as well as college readiness activities; such as, career-based workshops and a lot of real-world stuff. The program also does a ton of stuff to “help the community and the school.”
On April 10 the club attended their first state conference. Seniors Audrianna Bayona competed in a t-shirt design contest, and Reid Woodward competed in a cabinet-making contest. The rest of the students went and observed to see what else was offered, “there (were) a lot of hands-on demonstrations and experiences for them to experience.”
Widrowicz said, “Along with FCCLA and FBLA, [they] are trying to create another opportunity for students to have leadership.” he said it is nice to be able to give students something additional to just the classes they are taking in school. He also said, “it is nice to give them a club to tie their leadership too.”
Bayona, Woodward and Widrowicz had many one-on-one conversations about the skills, foundations, and expectations with the state and national conferences if they wanted to go onto nationals. He said the two students have a lot of knowledge on how the club works and runs and they have taken on those leadership roles.
As of right now they don’t have a set meeting time because it is so hard to work around everyone’s schedule. Usually they have been meeting before or after school, they have a quick AO get together, or they meet during class for a quick chat on things that need to get done. In addition, alot of his students in Trojan Tech are also in SkillsUSA so they are easily able to talk during times outside of set meeting times.
Widrowicz is super excited to get this club started up because he has been wanting to do something like this for his students for a while. Since we have had new clubs being introduced this year he felt like it was the perfect to get this club up and running. He said that if you are interested you can talk to him sometime or email him, even if you haven’t taken one of his classes offered at the high school you can talk to him and see what you can do to join.
