COLONIE — Capital Region BOCES is ready to open its new, $63 million Career & Technical Education Center and Maywood Academy on Watervliet Shaker Road when classes start next month.
There are some 1,100 high school students from 24 school districts around the Capital District registered for classes at the new 170,000-square-foot Tech Center and more than 200 adults are expected to take classes at the new facility as well.
Across the parking lot from the new tech center, is the new 43,000-square-foot home of the Maywood Academy. The former Maywood School on Central Avenue is closed, but the mission to focus on educating those with special needs will continue at the new building and will allow more than the current cap of 110 students to benefit.
Two dozen programs will be taught at the Tech Center including auto body collision repair, building trades, cosmetology, criminal justice, culinary arts and hospitality technology, early childhood education, digital media design, and manufacturing and machining technology.
“As an employer of a successful CTE alumni, we strongly support and applaud Capital Region BOCES on the opening of the Albany Career & Technical Education Center,” said Jim Becker, president of MIDTEL Family of Companies. “Workforce development has been an issue and finding employees with the aptitude and desire for working in the telecommunications and networking field has been our industry’s biggest challenge recently. This center is a major step in helping resolve that issue both here in the Capital Region and statewide.”
One example of the way students will be prepared with the latest technology is the addition of a Lincoln Electric VRTEX welding simulator for students in the Welding & Metal Fabrication program that was funded in part through a $25,000 grant from the American Welding Society.
Similarly, students in the Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Program will benefit from new refrigeration and heat pump trainers that will “simulate problems the students will face as HVAC/R technicians and allow them to observe and better understand the conditions inside a refrigeration system,” said teacher Tim Duane.
“BOCES has taken it to another level with the opening of the new Career & Technical Education Center at the Albany Campus,” said Brian Hemlock, president of TCI NY, a recycling company in Coeymans. “Through our partnership with Capital Region BOCES, students come to us ready to work and with this new facility they will be even more equipped with the skills they need to be successful.”
BOCES has a history of working with businesses who are struggling to find qualified employees.
“Because of our close relationship with business leaders around this region, we are able to prepare our students for the most in-demand jobs now, as well as the jobs that will be in high demand in the years to come,” said Capital Region BOCES Senior Executive Officer Joseph P. Dragone. “This is one of the largest, if not the largest, workforce training hubs in New York state.”
Students attending BOCES prepare for their careers through a combination of hands-on learning and work-based learning that teaches them not only the skills they need, but also provides them with industry connections and experience that is crucial to their future success
“Transitioning from Capital Region BOCES to my job at Albany Medical Center was smooth. I already knew the scenery and how to do my job, and thanks to BOCES had made the connections I needed to be hired and be successful,” said Carrera Meyer-Hill, a 2021 graduate of the BOCES Sterile Processing Technician Program, who now prepares medical instruments for surgeries at the hospital.
There was a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday, Aug. 16.
“The opportunity that kids can have to explore in this facility is amazing,” added Daniel McCoy, Albany County Executive. “BOCES is truly changing people’s lives.”
The former Tech Center was located about a mile away on Watervliet Shaker Road. BOCES outgrew that facility and with no room to expand, opted to build new. Earlier this month voters approved selling the complex and in May, voters in the South Colonie School District approved spending up to $1.9 million to purchase the site for a new bus garage and maintenance headquarters.
The 38-plus acres of land, owned and developed by Rosetti Acquisitions, is part of the Shaker Historic District and was once farmlands of the Shaker’s West Family. Many of the adjacent apartment buildings — and the old barn on the road leading to Afrim’s Sports Park — date to when the Shakers flourished in Colonie. The main Shaker site is located across Watervliet Shaker Road, about a mile away on Heritage Lane.
To help mitigate the impacts, BOCES had agreed to install a permanent display in both buildings demonstrating the technologies developed by the Shakers and how they were used in farming and agriculture and to educate students and viewers on the relationship of the Shakers to the surrounding communities and how they relate to the community today. BOCES had also agreed to use its students and technology to produce multi-media materials to help enhance Shaker Heritage Society educational programs.
Classes will begin at the new facility along with the start of school at districts across the Capital District on Sept. 6.
