WESTFIELD – Throughout the week, Westfield Technical Academy hosted a variety of events to celebrate students accomplishments during National Career Technical Education Week.

To celebrate the students, the school will host four different events to showcase all of the work its students have accomplished. The school hosted its National Technical Honors society induction on Feb. 10, its Adopt a School program at Munger Hill on Feb. 12 and its freshman Induction Ceremony on Feb. 13 before closing the week with its CNA Pinning Ceremony on Feb. 14.

Pete Taloumis, WTA’s CTE director, said CTE week is a national celebration of technical academies. “It’s a national event that recognizes the activities at the school will conduct over the course of the year wrapped into a single week,” he said.

Principal Joe Langone said, “It’s an opportunity nationally to highlight the work of career tech education schools.”

Taloumis said that as part of the NTHS induction ceremony 65 juniors were honored. Langone said the NTHS is similar to the National Honors Societies in other high schools but recognizes more than academic achievement.

“The Technical Honors Society specifically highlights the work at CTE high schools,” Langone said, “So it isn’t just about academic performance, it’s about shop performance and community service.”

One of the unique parts about WTA’s CTE week is its Adopt a School program. “Each school year we select an elementary school to visit grades one through five with our 12 career technical programs,” Taloumis said. “We read a grade appropriate text to the students and showcase some of the hands-on components of the shop.”

He said that the program has been going on for six years and Munger Hill is the last school in the rotation.

On Feb. 13 the school is recognizing its sophomores with the school’s shop induction ceremony, during which students will be selecting their final shop.

“By the time the students have come back as sophomores, they come back with a higher degree of permanence, with rare exception where they are as sophomores is where they’ll be when they graduate,” Langone said. “It’s a tremendous achievement for any 15 or 16 year-old to make a decision that’s gonna potentially govern the rest of his or her life.”

Taloumis said this year’s keynote speaker for the Induction Ceremony is Martha Rickson from Polish National Credit Union.

To close out the week, the school will honor its Allied Health Department students who passed the program and will be graduating as certified nursing assistants (CNA). Taloumis said, “This ceremony acknowledges their hard work through off campus clinical hours and testing so they’ve passed the CNA and will graduate with CNA certifications.”

WTA Student Services Coordinator Rob Ollari spoke about what CTE week means to the school and said, “it’s a good opportunity to take the time out to highlight and reflect on what we do here on a daily basis.”