Abigail Martel: [00:00:00] They look like sticks  

Lindsay McGinnis: They’re not …  

Abigail Martel: they’re bugs.  

Lindsay McGinnis: They’re bugs.  

Jonathan Hughes: That’s a bug?  

Abigail Martel: That’s a bug.  

Lindsay McGinnis: Yeah it’s its casing. Look- You can’t see the bug. That’s just the casing.  

Abigail Martel: You can look in the- Wow … look in the little, look in the little hole. There’s a bug in there.  

Lindsay McGinnis: Yeah, that’s so God. Isn’t that weird? It is. So 

when people fly fish you see how they make those elaborate flies to put on the end of their fishing pole- Yeah … put on the end of their line. That’s so cool. That’s what they’re mimicking. They’re mimicking what these look right? Because this is what the fish eat. This is their natural food chain. 

Jonathan Hughes: Now, I promised you last time that I would come back this episode and tell you what I was doing in the river, and so here we are. I thought that after talking to Joe Wyman last week about how MyCAP matches up students with their interests and then their interests to real-life local career [00:01:00] opportunities, that after that we should see how this works at the school level and how it works for real students. 

And so Erica Girgenti, who is the community and pathways coordinator at Hoosac Valley, was nice enough to invite us down to that school in beautiful Cheshire, Massachusetts in Berkshire County to do just that. So let’s hear from Erica about Hoosac Valley and what pathways it offers  

Erica Girgenti: Hoosac is designated by DESE in now newly released three pathways. 

So we have biomedical science that we title them slightly different than what the designations are, but it’s biomedical science and healthcare, environmental science or environmental life skills. We have engineering and technology that will be our newly designated cle- our clean energy pathway. 

We have sports medicine, health and wellness that [00:02:00] sort of nestles underneath our biomedical pathway. We have education, and we have arts and entertainment.  

Jonathan Hughes: Now these students, Abby and Olivia, are in the environmental science career pathway, which is led by Lindsay McGinnis. 

Lindsay McGinnis: You guys, that’s probably one of ours. 

Abigail Martel: That’s what I was thinking earlier. He’s one of ours. I seen him earlier. He’s the big guy. Yeah. I saw. I Liv, do you think that’s ours? Look at that.  

Jonathan Hughes: But what was the actual class that we were a part of when we went to the marina? Yeah.  

Erica Girgenti: It’s called Fisheries Management, and there’s Fisheries Management 1 and Fisheries Management 2. 

And so each year we have an upperclassman train who’s in Fisheries Management 2, train one or two juniors in Fisheries Management 1. And then so when that senior graduates, they move up, and we bring up another kid in the co- in that cohort, in that path to continue this work. And so they have a wealth of [00:03:00] r-research that they 

Years of r-research based off of the work that our students are doing here at Hoosac through the guidance of Mrs. McGinnis. So Lindsay, as an educator and as just an adult in the community who’s passionate about environmental science and change in our neighborhoods, is on a few different boards, and one of those boards being Trout Unlimited. 

And so through her affiliation with Trout Unlimited, she sponsors and hosts two interns. So it is unpaid work. But through that work, they ra-raise trout from egg and then release them into the stream for, for restaffing, or not restaffing our streams, but restocking our streams.  

Lindsay McGinnis: But they start in September, learn how to do the sensor work, then get oriented to the trout tank that we have in the classroom. 

In November, the hatchery in c- in collaboration with Mass Wildlife, delivers us 200 trout eggs from that, from the hatchery. And we raise the trout from egg in the classroom. They do water quality at three times a [00:04:00] week.  

Jonathan Hughes: How long does that take to raise from eggs?  

Lindsay McGinnis: So we start they hatch around January. So we get them in November, and then they hatch around January, and then we have to be really mindful about doing water quality. Before they hatch, we do it like a couple times a week. Once they hatch, we do it every single day.  

Jonathan Hughes: And what’s involved in that?  

Lindsay McGinnis: Water quality. What do you guys measure for water quality? 

Olivia Silvernail: Ammonia, nitr-  

Lindsay McGinnis: No s- say that again.  

Olivia Silvernail: Did I say it wrong?  

Lindsay McGinnis: Ammonia.  

Olivia Silvernail: Ammonia. Nitrate. Oh my God, there’s the one with the I and A.  

Lindsay McGinnis: Nitrite.  

Olivia Silvernail: Nitrite and nitrate. Nitrate. PH. I know I’m missing one. Oh, 

Lindsay McGinnis: KH,  

Olivia Silvernail: GH, and then there’s one more that I’m missing. Temperature. Temperature, all so we ha- the, that all goes into-  

Abigail Martel: That spreadsheet.  

Olivia Silvernail: Yeah. We have a little spreadsheet that we had for the axolotl tank. Trout.  

Abigail Martel: So you get axolotls too?  

Olivia Silvernail: We had one, yeah. Then she, the PH swinged it all year, the water, so she had to go home. 

Abigail Martel: And how do you fix it if things are getting weird with PH or whatever? Do you have to treat it with chemicals or? Do you guys remember what [00:05:00] the things are called?  

Olivia Silvernail: Nite-Out and then there’s Conditioner.  

Abigail Martel: And also for the axolotl, the black tea is really helpful to bring the PH down.  

Jonathan Hughes: Okay, and then so once they hatch, then what? 

Lindsay McGinnis: They’re doing the water quality daily, and then we have to wait till the trout get about finger’s length, and it’s usually around April, like late April, beginning May if we, if, if we get a late start with hatching. But usually it’s about mid-April. And then we put them in containers, and we bring them right out here. You got a little minnow by your foot. You see him?  

Erica Girgenti: So her interns work either alongside her, maybe her prep, prep period or even she has an internship corner, and so she may be teaching, an eighth grade or a ninth grade science class, and her interns are just quietly working in the back corner doing data analysis on water temperatures, maybe cleaning out the fish tank, something like that. 

So they work along, alongside her current classes.  

Lindsay McGinnis: So they live in PVC piping like [00:06:00] that. It’s at, she’s going to take it off- Oh, okay … and show you. They only go right here. Can you see them better? Oops.  

Olivia Silvernail: Oh, man, that makes more sense now. I was like really confused for a second. 

Lindsay McGinnis: And these two will be the two senior interns next year, so they’re going to train two juniors. So this is a temperature sensor.  

Olivia Silvernail: So yeah, this is the sensor, and this is the adapter. So we plug in the adapter into our computer and we put it in. So you align this arrow with this arrow, and we put it in. 

But there’s a site that she has opened up on her computer in order for us to collect the data and get the data off of it.  

Jonathan Hughes: And why test the temperature in the water?  

Olivia Silvernail: So we can determine if it’s a cold water fishery or not since they’ll still release trout in here because the trout needs cold water. 

But we have right here, you can start pulling it up with- [00:07:00]  

Lindsay McGinnis: Want me to take you up?  

Jonathan Hughes: Yeah, sure. I actually, I want to- Big picture then, why do this with the tribe?  

Lindsay McGinnis: The reason why we are doing this is the rivers are still very much in need of fish. They, we can’t keep up with the amount of fishing licensing fees that are sold and the recreation. 

Oh. And then in turn, that recreation also feeds back into the cycle, right? So if there’s not enough fish, then the people aren’t buying those fishing licenses, and therefore we’re not putting any money in to protect the waterways as well.  

Jonathan Hughes: So I asked Erica how long Hoosac had been involved in MyCAP and how they’d developed their relationships with employers and found opportunities for partnerships. 

Erica Girgenti: I’ll say that last summer we did a, my, I pulled my college and career readiness team together, and we developed our MyCAP curriculum.  

Jonathan Hughes: Oh, okay. And really- So this is very new to you then?  

Erica Girgenti: We shaped it out, yeah. And what w- what we found when we did that was like, “Oh, we’ve been doing this for years. 

We’re going to now put it on our curriculum.” [00:08:00] We had just started that last year, we’re going to put it on our curriculum. And I think when we last spoke, one of the things that I had said was for student- or for schools who are just starting out, is to pick that one thing, start with it, master it. Add a second the following year, and a third the next. 

We’ve been able to pull from things that we’ve been doing for years, and repeat them, and then add onto them, and add something extra. We’ve been able to add new activities this year based off of different grant funding that we’ve been able to h- capture. The other thing that I would say is if you are not utilizing your local mass hire, then that is your first step. 

Develop that relationship. I don’t care if it’s y- you bringing them their favorite latte every morning. Do whatever it takes to capture their attention and really, really foster that relationship, because none of our success would be [00:09:00] successful without their support. Our mass hire, Berkshire Workforce Board helps give us funding for for positions like mine. 

They have access to paid internships for our students. So every once in a while, they’ll pop up and say, “Hey, we got a private funder. We have this grant.” And they’re working with all of our schools, so they’ll say, “I can take two from Hoosac, and two from Drury, and two from McCann, and so let’s, pool our resources.” 

Lindsay McGinnis: So I’ve managed to do two externships now with local communities and members. So Red Shirt Farm, I actually as a teacher went there and worked there. They didn’t have to actually put me on their salary. With an externship we go through our local mass hire board, our workforce board, or even through the state. 

This year we got our DESE grant- … through the state to give an ex- externship. So I did Red Shirt Farm first, so established that connection with them. I also work really closely with Greenagers. So they work with youth groups all the [00:10:00] time doing gardens and trail work. And so these two are actually part of a paid trail crew that we did over April vacation as another externship program. 

So I worked alongside of Greenagers and brought a trail crew of six students and they got paid, which is a really cool opportunity for them as well. So again, ideally establishing that connection so that we can keep getting kids involved with the work that they’re doing. And then the Trout Unlimited work that I’ve done in the past is really my connection with the fisheries piece that I didn’t get. 

Abigail Martel: From what the business perspective is or from the employer’s perspective is, what are they looking for?  

Lindsay McGinnis: Ideally for people to stay in this area and to do these things, do this work. So I think it makes sense.  

Jonathan Hughes: Now I asked Erica the same question of what employers are looking for.  

Erica Girgenti: I think it’s to expose them to the career opportunities and hope that, if this works out, I would, I’d love to keep you. 

We had a successful internship with a [00:11:00] local recycling company. It was- it’s Dream Green Recycling. They’re one of our pathway partners, our environmental pathway partners. And they actually hosted, they host several of our interns, Abby being one of them.  

Abigail Martel: Tear up hard drives, tear up mattresses, cut wood… 

Jonathan Hughes: Sounds exhausting. 

Abigail Martel: I love it. I really do.  

Erica Girgenti: And another one was for a student who’s in our business and entrepreneurship pathway, and what he did with them was research grants that they could be applying for and helped draft budgets and spreadsheets and did all that work. So while it was connected to the environmental path, it was really his interest in business, and they were so impressed by him. 

They’re s- sad to see… they’re happy to see him go, but they’re, they’re like, “When you come home for the summer, come, come back and work for us. What else can do you think that you can do? And, do you want to work remotely? What would you like, what would you like to do with us?” 

So they’re happy when it’s a good fit and when it works out [00:12:00] to have free labor for one. And then if they can certainly pay him, they want to, hook him to keep him.  

Jonathan Hughes: One theme that has been coming up again and again lately in a whole bunch of different shows that I’ve done in a bunch of different contexts is the benefit to these exposures, right? 

Exposing high school students and middle school students to new experiences to see what they’re interested in sometimes or what they’re not interested in. So let’s hear from Olivia on her journey from one pathway to another  

Lindsay McGinnis: Initially, what pathway were you signed in, Liv? You remember? 

Olivia Silvernail: Yeah. I was initially signed in for the biomedical pathway because I wanted to be a nurse like my grandmother, because my grandmother was like, is like my hero. 

And so I wanted to be a nurse like her, saving lives and doing all that. But I couldn’t handle, like it sounded boring when I was getting introduced to it, and I was like, “I don’t really want to spend my life [00:13:00] s- walking people down hospital beds.” And it feels like really sad to me to see people going through like their worst moments. 

So I found another way to help the people and the environment. So freshman year I fell in love with the class, so I kind of just ended up taking all of her cl- almost all of her classes that interest me. But just like all her classes that seemed like fun and that I would be interested in learning for hopefully my future career. 

Jonathan Hughes: And now Abby.  

Abigail Martel: What got me interested in this pathway is just my love for animals in general and me wanting to be a vet one day. So this is the closest fit for the pathways in school.  

Lindsay McGinnis: Abby’s pathway’s- Yeah. Right here … been pretty streamlined. She’s kind of started with me and kind of stuck it out with me. 

Yeah. So why don’t you from when you started, Ab? Yeah. I  

Abigail Martel: started, we, me and Liv, our first class together was conservation in eighth grade?  

Olivia Silvernail: That was freshman [00:14:00] year. Freshman. Yeah.  

Abigail Martel: Yeah. Freshman year, and- I’ve taken, I’ve taken almost every single one of her classes besides outdoor leadership? That’s right. 

And, yeah, I’ll be taking that next year. I’ve been the garden intern for the past two years. Oh, nice. I’ve been taking care of their garden.  

Erica Girgenti: She’d love to pass it off.  

Abigail Martel: I would. But if I need to do it again, I’ll also do it.  

Jonathan Hughes: Again about the mini exposures, how did they get these experiences?  

Lindsay McGinnis: Every year we have been doing field trips for our ninth and 10th graders to get them immersed in whatever their pathway is. So these guys have been to the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. Yeah. Last year they went to the hydroponics lab over at the jail. They also spoke with our local EPO. So every year for ninth and 10th graders, we try and get them these ex- these [00:15:00] exposure field trips to different things in their field. 

And so by the time they’re a junior, we’re trying to get them doing job sh- job shadows or internships or things that really align so that they’re doing the work and not just seeing what other people do.  

Jonathan Hughes: Now, as we mentioned last time, MyCAP often culminates in some on-the-job experience called work-based learning. Has that happened yet for Olivia?  

Olivia Silvernail: I want to be environmental police, and so I can’t job shadow because it is dangerous, so I have done internships with trail work, which is another option I want to go into. And then this one, yes, this internship bringing the fish and everything is another job that I might want to go into. But my main goal is to be in the EPO. So I spoke with a local EPO, Teryn Carlo during the course of my internship, and then I met her through visit.  

Erica Girgenti: So our local EPO officer is who’s a graduate, and so she’s our alumni. And so we welcomed her in. She’s been to our career fairs. She’s been a career speaker for us. 

And then we also [00:16:00] do what we call experiential field trips, and so we take each of our cohort of kids, and we take them out into the community. And we’ve seen Teryn Carlo, our local EPO officer, on a couple of occasions. And she set us up the last time with a colleague of hers at the local river, at a, or a lake, excuse me, and the students got to see the boat and what they do with the boat. 

And so Olivia’s just been exposed to this career over the course of a few years now. And every time she gets- she sees Taryn or she’s introduced to Taryn, it starts to sound a little bit more appealing to her. Not speaking for her, but I assume that’s what it is, and she’s had a chance to sit with Taryn and see how successful this career choice has been for her and her family. 

Olivia Silvernail: So I have a pretty good idea of what I’m, w- why I want to do it, and how I can go through it.  

Jonathan Hughes: So what is, what are the next steps that you could do?  

Olivia Silvernail: So I just need to be 21. I don’t need any [00:17:00] college- Oh, okay … education, which is really good. So my plan is to go to ZCC- … and do an environmental science associates degree and a criminal justice associates degree. 

Jonathan Hughes: Now I want to give Erica the last few minutes to address her experience and talk to other schools that may be looking for advice in getting community partners.  

Erica Girgenti: No shame in anyone’s game. No stone unturned. You work every angle you can. So I personally love to put out a pool and say a few different things. 

I’ve said to f- parents of, and guardians of our students “What’s your career? Are you willing to share it? Do you have a place that you can host us?” I’ve said to the students in the, in, in the seats, “Do you have an adult at home? Does your friend have an adult at home that is hosting a job or an internship or a c- a career that you might be able to shadow or participate in?” 

When we did our, were they mock interviews? I can’t remember. One of our events and I went down to the middle school and I [00:18:00] said, “We’re, we’re doing this.” And the kids were like, “Oh, my dad’s a neurosurgeon.” And I was like, “What? Can we call him? Put the pressure on your dad to come,” as if he doesn’t have more important things to do. 

But we put the pressure on the kids to, to go home and say, “Hey, can you come to our career fair? Can you come to talk to my class?” And then from there they get a chance to meet some kids, and they’re like, “You know what? I would host that kid in my office. I think I got something I could do for them, or they could do for me.” 

We also reached out. We did a alumni survey, and we p- just continuously share it out and we check in with our alumni which is, was really successful most recently in a pen pal program we did with our middle school. So people all over the world, S- a few people out of the country, and then more so spread throughout the country and people locally were… 

Did pen pals with our middle school students, which was really cool for Hoosac grads to come back and participate in that. And God, what else have we did? Prior [00:19:00] to my role here, I used to work in a senior center. … And I strongly think that having a good relationship with your local senior center is great because the men and women that participate in that program have institutional knowledge and a connection to the businesses throughout your community and are m- usually more than willing to help support the kids in any way and really want to see them be successful. 

So they’ve been supportive and helpful in helping us find internships as well.  

Jonathan Hughes: Erica also has some words of emotional support for counselors and coordinators that are just beginning to do this hard work.  

Erica Girgenti: I think the most important thing is to give yourself grace. I don’t know what it’s like in, in any other communities, but what I… 

Than my own really. But what I do know is every school is being asked to do work-based learning, whether you’re a, voke school, whether you’re [00:20:00] a technology school, s- all the different types of schools that are out there. Even homeschool kids are looking for these experiences. And so in a small community like ours, I have two other high schools that are literally a five-minute drive away from me, three other high schools that are less than 10. 

So we are all competing for the same employers, for the same experiences for our students. And that’s what it is. We are we’re competing for our local community’s time and attention. And so I, I guess I just want to close and say thank you to, to MEFA for providing us with so many resources and support and always being available every time we pick up the phone and call. 

Thank you for DESE, for all of your support in, in, in guidance in our Mass Hire’s because they’re, they are the workforce gurus spreading a thread through our entire c- our entire state.[00:21:00]  

Jonathan Hughes: All right. I had an absolute blast going out to Hoosac Valley. I cannot thank you enough, Erica, Lindsay, Abby, and Olivia, and I certainly wish you all the best in everything that you do. It’s not hard to feel optimistic about programs like this, about the future of education and work and community partnerships after meeting all of you. 

So folks, follow us where you get your podcasts. Until next time, I’m Jonathan Hughes and this has been the MEFA podcast.