WOHS student wins SkillsUSA award

WEST ORANGE, NJ — West Orange High School student Shaurya Sangvi won the coveted Statesman Award at the SkillsUSA Washington Leadership Training Institute Conference, held in Washington, D.C., from Sept. 17 to 21.

SkillsUSA is one of the national student organizations at West Orange High School that is funded by the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act, which provides federal funds for vocational-technical programs. The Perkins Grant funding the district receives is used for each of the 10 state-approved Career and Technical Education programs at WOHS. SkillsUSA is a national organization which offers students leadership opportunities and competitions on a state and national level in each of the 16 career clusters. This year the district received $50,025 in Perkins Grant funding.

The purpose of the WLTI Conference is to prepare students for leadership roles by developing their personal, workplace and technical skills — all grounded in academics. At the WLTI Conference, students attended several workshops devoted to developing a skillset that is demanded in business and higher learning environments.

On Sept. 20, Sangvi met with Senator Cory Booker’s education legislator William Cunningham to advocate for Perkins funding for CTE programs in all schools. During that meeting, Sangvi discussed the innovative CTE programs at West Orange High School and how they benefit from Perkins funding. Just the following day, on Sept. 21, negotiations broke down between Senate Democrats and Republicans over a bipartisan rewrite of the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, though it had passed unanimously in the house in July.

In addition to being an outstanding student, Sangvi will be leading the SkillsUSA Club at the high school, where he plans to teach other students the skills he has gleaned and host activities that will benefit the entire school community.

  Cory Booker, West Orange High School