WOHS Career Education Post
Future Business Leaders Edition: Winter 2022
News from Ms. Mullin
Welcome to the Winter 2022 edition of the WOHS Career Education Post. We hope you enjoy learning about our specialized programs at WOHS.
We offer several Career and Technical Education (CTE) Programs of Study in specific career pathways as well as course electives which are essential to your success in both college and careers. (Click on the RED headings below to see the scope and sequence of our programs.) The goal is for you to experience a career pathway prior to pursuing that career in college to ensure it meets your needs and expectations. We also provide opportunities for you to earn stackable credentials in the forms of industry certifications and experiences which make you an extremely desirable candidate for both colleges and prospective employers.
We work closely with our business partners in each industry as well as colleges to ensure we are preparing you to be successful in your future endeavors. Our partnerships allow students to step into jobs and college classrooms with the skills and knowledge needed to far exceed expectations.
Best of all, students in many of our programs have the opportunity to earn dual-credit from colleges such as Hudson Community College, Rider University, Rutgers University, and Fairleigh Dickinson University as well as other top schools. I must not forget the success of our clubs such as FCCLA and FBLA. But I will let you read ahead to hear directly from our incredible staff.
Enjoy reading more about what is happening in our classes in the first edition of the WOHS Career Education Post.
Best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season!
Ms. Mullin
Honors Virtual Enterprise: What is it?
Information for scheduling
Look What's Cooking...
The first semester in our Culinary Arts classes has been amazing! Our student chefs have been learning how to create a variety of dishes and have enjoyed tasting their creations. Their palates are opening up to new flavors and seasonings.
Our Introduction to the Culinary Arts Level 1 students have learned proper knife skills which they used to slice and dice the ingredients for soups and sauces. They made potato soup, fresh sauce for their homemade pizzas, and delicious macaroni and cheese. Hopefully they will test these recipes at home during the holidays with family and friends.
Global Cuisine 1 students traveled virtually to France and made French onion soup, quiche, and delicious crepes.
Creativity and Innovation in the Culinary Arts students made chicken pot pies and tasty butternut squash soup in homemade bread bowls. Watch out, Panera! All of our students continue to learn a variety of cooking techniques as they finish out 2022 with cookies.
We can’t wait for what 2023 will bring to our kitchens. Are you the next best chef? Read about our American Culinary Federation Pre-Apprenticeship Arts program here at WOHS.
Make sure to sign up for one of our culinary classes, let's get cooking! Follow us on Instagram to see what the chefs will be stewing up next! @woculinaryarts
WOHS ACF Culinary Arts Pre-Apprenticeship Program
West Orange High School applied for and was awarded an Expand Pre-Apprenticeship Grant in Culinary Arts for a total of $200,000 over the last 2 years. The grant allowed us to create the WOHS Pre-Apprenticeship ACF Culinary Arts Program for students age 16 and above.
If you are interested in the Culinary Arts profession you now have the ability to jump-start your career through a pre-apprenticeship opportunity WOHS is participating in with the American Culinary Federation (ACF) and our employer partner, Maschio’s. You will learn specific culinary arts skills and techniques that lead to the ACF Fundamental Cook certification while in high school. The ACF Fundamentals Cook Program provides the student introductory culinary skills while gaining valuable industry exposure. The trainee gains the knowledge and skill set necessary to achieve the Certified Fundamental Cook® (CFC®) certification.
Click here to learn more about the program and to complete the application form.
Contact Ms. Mullin if you have any questions;
Early Childhood and Family Studies
Our preschool was up and running for the first semester. Students in our Early Childhood Program creatively worked on their lesson plans and delivered engaging experiences for the preschool students. These activities are built around the developmental stages of our preschool students and provide a variety of activities to ensure their time with us is engaging and includes opportunities to learn different skills from all of the subject areas. In our Early Childhood and Family Studies 1 classes, our high school students are working on the Nutrition Unit during which they planned and executed cooking labs for our preschoolers. Some recipes that were chosen were parfaits, strawberry muffins, french toast and granola bars. Now the students are currently working on games which foster the learning of a nutritional skill to make eating healthy fun! Early Childhood and Family Studies 2 classes are executing the lessons that the students prepared as part of their educational units. The students had to come up with a unique theme and develop a cross-curricular unit that encompassed learning from all areas of development for the preschoolers. To further their career prospects, the high school students researched careers and schools that they would have an interest in attending post high school. They developed a resume as well as a website to market their skills. Our Early Childhood and Family Studies 3 students continue to create engaging activities for our preschool students as they research different learnng styles. Many of our level three students continue on to Tomorrow's Teacher in their senior year.
See Ms. Mullin for more information! 8th graders must apply to be accepted into the program for Freshman year. Click here for the application.
Learn more about our preschool program by clicking here.
Preschool students on the magic rug.
Fun Activities!
Learning our letters
Tomorrow's Teacher
Fashion Clothing, Fashion Merchandising and Apparel Design Production
Our Fashion program prepares students for a variety of careers in the fashion industry. Students learn how to create impressive projects in our sewing lab. Students in Fashion Merchandising learn many aspects of the fashion industry such as merchandising, project development and how to create trend boards for presentations around their collections. Apparel Design students further their talents and skills while creating portfolios to use in the college application process.
Interior design students learn how to draw floor plans to scale and how to create 3D representations of their plans based on the elements and principles of design.
Check out the FCCLA club to see how our students are representing WOHS on both a state and national level in the area of fashion, foods, and child development.
Interior Design Studnets create 3D floor plans
Students learn creative stitches for their projects.
FCCLA 2022
Our students won many awards at this year's FCCLA Fall conference.
Accounting and Honors College Accounting
November marks that time of year when the New Jersey Society of CPA (NJCPA) reaches out to West Orange High School to present their Career Awareness Program. Every year since 2014, Dave Katz (WOHS graduate) visits our accounting classes to speak to our students about a career in accounting and the pathway to CPA. In addition to his presentation, the NJCPA offers two scholarship opportunities for seniors interested in majoring in accounting.
Last school year, West Orange High School was one of four schools in New Jersey selected to participate in the Deloitte Foundation High School Minority Scholarship Program. Three of our students were awarded scholarships, Angelie Jean-Baptiste, Meka King, and Marcelo Torres Chavez. In addition to the financial award, these students will have a mentor throughout their college career, with opportunities for internships and employment. An awards ceremony was held last April at the Pines Manor in Edison honoring the scholarship recipients.
Pictured above is West Orange 2022 graduate Angelie Jean-Baptiste.
IT Essentials & Honors Cyber Security
Cybersecurity failure is a top 5 global risk, so it’s no surprise that it has turned life for many people into a nightmare overnight. It’s a scary reality! As the problem solver that you are, what can you do practically to protect yourself and the people and things you love? Become a Cyber Defender by taking the WOHS Cybersecurity courses.
WOHS offers courses that prepare you to build, monitor, configure, and protect network devices. Cybersecurity students are learning how to do ethical hacking, which involves using many different types of tools to test and protect the network. Cybersecurity students learn how to verify the security of a network and its systems using many network penetration testing tools. Cybersecurity students also learn how to use hacking tools in order to perform network penetration tests. Some of the tools the students are using include password crackers, wireless hacking tools, packet sniffers, rootkit detectors, fuzzers to search vulnerabilities (Skipfish, Wapiti, and W3af), and forensic tools.
There is an increase in demand for Cybersecurity professionals in the industry, so many
universities now offer a degree in the field as well. The Honors level courses
also offer students an opportunity to earn college credits as a part of our dual-credit agreement with Fairleigh Dickinson’s Middle College Program.
Business Organization and Management
Next semester we move onto such topics as finance, payroll, marketing, ethics in business and more! We strive to enhance our students' critical thinking skills, creativity, communication, and collaboration.
Concepts of Entrepreneurship
Marketing
Check out our most recent branding project in the picture above. Which snack would you want to try?
Honors Virtual Entperprise
VE, our dual-credit, honors, capstone course, offers all students meaningful skills-based career experiences. Through our hands-on, task-based curricula, students test drive potential careers and develop in-demand skills and competencies that post-secondary institutions and employers are seeking. By managing the day-to-day operations of a company, students not only develop business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset, they also identify career pathways that align with their interests, talents, and aspirations. Watch this video to learn more about the Honors Virtual Enterprise program at WOHS.
This class counts towards the Financial Literacy graduation requirement.
This year's Virtual Enterprise class has created a pet security and products business they named PetZ. Check out our website and don't forget to follow us on social media to see what we do this year @petz.vei.Click here to see how this year's class came up with the business idea!
Digital Design and Multimedia Applications
In our Digital Design class, we use industry-standard software products, the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, to create high-impact professional desktop publishing designs and documents.
The students are truly enjoying themselves this semester, first learning the basics of InDesign and moving onto intermediate and advanced features.
With all this foundational design knowledge, we will be moving forward this semester to work on creating logos, both web and print-based advertisements, brochures, newsletters and more.
The students are loving tapping into their creative side and will leave with advanced skills useful in either college or the workplace!
Supply Chain Management
See Mr. Jackson for more information.
Work-Based Learning Opportunities for Seniors
Cooperative Education Program
Personal Finance: Graduation Requirement
Students today face an increasing number of financial choices as a result of the global economy in which we live. This course focuses on the financial-life aspects of the students' roles as citizens, family members, consumers, and active daily participants in the business world. This course is designed to assist students in recognizing their financial responsibilities today and those they will encounter in the future. Topics will include budgeting, banking, consumer credit, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and money management strategies. A course in Personal Finance is a graduation requirement.
Students take the nationally recognized W!SE Financial Literacy Online Test.
Contact Information
You can also read more about our programs by visiting our department website.
Email: nmullin@westorangeschools.org
Website: https://www.woboe.org/domain/233