What’s Happening at RTCC

 

’What’s Happening’ at RTCC

Welcome to the Randolph Technical Career Center! We're glad you're here.

There's always something going on at RTCC as students pursue their career goals by doing what they love and experiencing their chosen field first-hand. Like this recent tiny house project: (News story written by Zoe Newmarco, photo by Tim Calabro, courtesy of The Herald, April 14, 2022)

Big Project: Tiny House

Pre-Tech Students To Donate Bldg. To Veteran Group

A smattering of teenagers gathered behind the Randolph Technical Career Center Tuesday morning, showing off the tiny house they’ve been building over the past few months.

Once finished, the house will be donated to Massachusetts-based Project New Hope, to house a veteran. Project New Hope has satellite offices in Randolph and White River Junction, and founder Bill Moore hopes to be able to donate the house to a veteran in Vermont.

This is the tech school’s second year running a pretech program for ninth- and tenth-grade students—typically the more hands-on technical career center is only open to students in eleventh and twelfth grades.

But the pre-tech program opens that up to younger students. The program has two cohorts—an afternoon class and a morning class. Each cohort spends the other half of the day at the high school next door for their core classes.

The students spent the first part of the year learning skills for the capstone project— building the tiny house.

“The big thing was learning how to use all the tools,” Dominick Morey said.

Alex Wittick, another student, added that it’s been challenging at times to figure out how to work as a team.

Many of the students agreed—the class has been helpful because they struggle to sit still and focus in a classroom that’s not as hands on.

Pre-tech teacher Gary Clark explained that initially the $10,000 grant from the Byrne Foundation and some other donations for the program was intended to cover the cost of building two tiny houses.

“Once the price of 2x4s hit $10 a piece, we just couldn’t afford it,” said Clark. So the afternoon class and the morning class are collaborating on a single tiny house for this year.

That house will be donated, but in the future, Clark hopes to build two at a time—one to donate, and one to sell to bring in revenue for the program.

Donating is a key focus for him, he emphasized.

“I’m all about asking how can we give back?” he emphasized.

Despite a shortage of affordable housing especially for single adults, Clark said finding an organization to donate the house to was surprisingly difficult. After reaching out to a handful of organizations that either declined the offer or didn’t respond at all, Clark reached out to Project New Hope after seeing its sign in Randolph.

While the organization might end up locating the house in Massachusetts, Clark, the class, and Project New Hope’s Moore are all hoping it can go to a veteran more local to the Randolph area.

On Tuesday morning, as the earlier group showed off their handiwork, they were quick to point out the mistakes made by the afternoon class.

But, chuckled Clark, the afternoon class is quick to say any mistakes were made by the morning class.

Recently, the morning group of students redid the roof, after the first roofing attempt left some leaks.

The 140-square-foot tiny house, which rests on an 18-foot trailer, includes a loft for the bedroom, and will have an indoor and outdoor kitchen.

The pre-tech students, whether in ninth or tenth grade this year, plan to attend RTCC full time, next year, taking a wide range of courses including diesel technology, advanced manufacturing, and agriculture.

Already, they’re working with the students in some of those programs—this week, students from the electrical program will mentor the pretech students as they finish wiring the tiny house.

Agreeing that working—let alone living—in the tiny house with other people can be tight quarters, many of the students said they’d consider living in a tiny house in the future.

“After building one? Heck yeah,” Wittick enthused about living in a tiny house someday.

And here's a great video about our Food For Thought Program:

We also have a number of student clubs and organizations for you to explore and meet new friends...take a look at some of them below.

 

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The Randolph Technical Career Center does not discriminate on the basis
of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender
identity, marital status, or age in its programs or activities. The following
person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policies: 

Heather Lawler, Orange Southwest School District Assistant Superintendent
 24 Central Street, Randolph, VT 05060, (802) 728-5052