October 29, 2024 | wbng.com online article

JOHNSON CITY (WBNG) — Students lined up to hop on busses at Broome-Tioga BOCES this morning to check out different places of employment as a part of “BOCES Disability Mentoring Day.”

The event serves as a way to connect special education students at BOCEs with possible future employers around Broome County as a part of National Disability Employment Month.

Principle of Career Development Center at Broome-Tioga BOCES Steve Moschak said that he hopes events like this will help get more people with disabilities into the workforce.

“This is an underserved population in terms of jobs, and we want to help to educate businesses, teaching them that there’s other people out there that could work,” said Moschak.

Each year, the event provides the mentors and the mentees the opportunity to spend time together at the business site. Mentees were able to better understand the businesses and specific jobs in the companies.

Director of Special Education at Broome-Tioga BOCES Marie Meaghar told 12 News they have high expectations for their students entering the workforce.

“We have high expectations for all of our students to achieve greatness, and never, you know, working to keep the bar low, that’s not what we’re about “, said Meaghar. ”A day like today really helps to show our employers that our students, while they may be students with disabilities, they still should have equal access. We should always hold them to a high standard, because they can achieve it. We’ve seen it time and time again.”

After a ceremony Tuesday morning, students went to their mentors’ businesses from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. to shadow workers and learn more about the businesses.

Colin Teegarden, keynote speaker at the event and former student in the program, told 12 News that the program helped prepare him for the workforce.

“I’m a client of Community Options, and it was a great time to be part of the Options to get going in a job coach and going for work” said Teegarden.

Organizations at the event included Achieve, AVRE, BOCES, Community Options, Access-VR, NYS Commission for the Blind and STIC.

Participating businesses also included Achieve and AVRE along with Dick’s House of Sport, Frito Lay, Good Shepperd, Loews, Mathews Planet Pre-Owned, Raymond Corporation, Red Lobster, STIC, Sodexo at Binghamton University, Vision Veterans Memorial Arena, Weis and Willow Run.