UPTON – Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School students proved their vocational-technical ability at the 59th annual SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference in Atlanta June 19-23.
The event is the world’s largest showcase of career and technical education students.
The highlight of the conference is the SkillsUSA Championships, where more than 6,500 outstanding career and technical education students – all state contest winners from across the nation – compete in 110 hands-on skill and leadership competitions. Students work against the clock and each other, proving their expertise in occupations such as electronics, computer-aided drafting, precision machining, medical assisting and culinary arts.
In the third and final stage of the SkillsUSA competition series, BVT students competed with impressive results. Once again, the student competitors demonstrated their career-technical expertise and proudly claimed one gold, three silver, and three bronze medals. All contestants who medaled or met a threshold contest score for their event as an indicator of proficiency were awarded skill point certificates.
The following BVT students from Grafton were honored:
Gold: Caitlin Brown, health occupations professional portfolio.
5th place: Grant Purcell, career pathways showcase/industry and engineering; and Ava Mills, career pathways showcase/industry and engineering.
“Our students continually strive to perfect the skills needed to compete against the best vocational-technical students in the SkillsUSA district, state and national championships,” said Superintendent-Director Michael Fitzpatrick. “In 2023, our students proved their technical skills are among the best in the country by earning 173 medals at all three levels.”
More details are available at www.valleytech.k12.ma.us/skillsusa.
