By Patrick Adrian
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
LANGDON — Career-technical education is thriving at Fall Mountain Regional High School roughly five years since the district established its own vocational education center.
Over the past five years, the Fall Mountain Regional School District has grown from a single vocational program in agriculture and animal science to six programs, including Junior ROTC (JROTC), horticulture, natural resources, agriculture, and digital design. The sixth, Business in Healthcare, will begin in the fall of 2022 and will enable students to earn community college credits and a certificate in medical administrative assistance.
Prior to establishing an independent vocational center, Fall Mountain Regional School District’s program was considered “a sub-center” of the Cheshire Career Center at Keene High School, according to Deb Connell, career-technical education coordinator at Fall Mountain Regional High School.
Fall Mountain Regional School District’s first vocational program, Animal Science, began 29 years ago with instructor Bruce Ferland, who still teaches the program today.
Animal Science, an agricultural program where students learn through hands-on experience to raise a variety of farm animals for meat and eggs, is currently the only program in the region to have a working farm located on school grounds.
“We get to do something that no other school around here provides,” said 18-year-old Fall Mountain Regional High School senior Jesse Fisk.
Fisk, along with fellow senior and classmate Serena Rathke, 18, provided a tour of the program’s barn to the Eagle Times on Wednesday, March 2.
The barn, whose addition was completed in 2014, houses a variety of livestock, including cattle, sheep, goats and even a llama, which protects the chickens when they go out to the pasture.
“A big part of what we do here is breeding and raising animals for meat production,” Fisk explained. “They will go to market and be sold for profit.”
“In [New England] the money isn’t in butchering, but in breeding,” Rathke said. “You will make a crop of money just breeding and selling pigs, because there is a high demand for piglets because people want to raise their own and know where their food is coming from.”
Through the program students learn a combination of skills, from basic veterinary skills to sustainable farming practices and agricultural business management.
Much of the veterinary care, Fisk said, entails learning to study the animal’s behavior, identify the illness and provide the animals with the best care one can. Much of what students learn is the “rudimentary” level of veterinary care, such as issues that one can address without calling a veterinarian.
The farm’s cattle are grass-fed so students also learn to practice rotational grazing, which is healthier for the animals, cost-efficient, and ecologically sustainable, according to Fisk.
Back at the center, in a different classroom, cadets in the Junior ROTC program begin their class by standing and reciting the Cadet Creed and the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Abigail Stavrou, a cadet corporal.
“We are a leadership program,” said retired U.S. Army Major Bill Maynard, the Junior ROTC program instructor. “We want to produce great, young leaders — American citizens who are responsible, respectful, and will serve their community and country in any way they can.”
Fall Mountain Regional School District’s Junior ROTC program has a total enrollment of 75-80 students per year, divided into two semesters. In addition to Fall Mountain Regional School District students, three cadets commute from Claremont and four come from Keene.
In addition to learning skills in leadership development and self-awareness, the cadets engage in physical fitness activities, which allows the program to count as a high school physical education credit.
As part of the national Junior ROTC program, cadets in the Fall Mountain Regional School District program are eligible to apply for national scholarships, such as for pilot training, or compete in national competitions, including the national drill team competition and the JROTC Leadership and Academic Bowl.
Last year Fall Mountain Regional School District’s JROTC academic team made it to the nationals, where the team finished seventh.
At the greenhouse, outside the center, horticulture instructor Liz Collinsworth taught her Greenhouse Management course.
Greenhouse Management, a second semester course, covers “anything in the horticulture industry,” Collinsworth said, including seed anatomy, planting and growing practices, planning flower and plant sales and marketing.
In the second level course, students delve more deeply into the industry, through a study of floral design, plant identification, and landscaping.
The second course, in addition to counting as an art credit, provides a senior-level math experience, as the students learn to use engineer scales and do basic architectural drafting for the landscaping unit.
Digital Design, taught by second-year instructor Laura Romaniello, consists of four courses, in which students study the graphic design industry, design theory and techniques and practice hands-on using industry standard digital tools.
Originally a graphics design program, Fall Mountain Regional School District’s program transitioned to a digital design focus to align with state competency requirements.
“Graphic design includes hands-on components such as screen printing, whereas digital design is more designing for online like social media, marketing, and advertising,” Romaniello said. “But in my mind it is basically the same [in terms of theory].”
All of Romaniello’s courses this semester are full and “enrollment keeps growing higher,” Romaniello said.
“A couple of students have even expressed interest in going into digital design,” Romaniello said.
Students who take all four courses will receive eight general credits at Keene State University.
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