Broome-Tioga BOCES Hosts Annual Disability Mentoring Day

JOHNSON CITY (WBNG) – Students lined up to board buses at Broome-Tioga BOCES this morning to check out various job sites as part of BOCES’ Disability Mentoring Day.

The event serves as a way to connect special education students at BOCE with possible future employers in Broome County during National Disability Employment Month.

Broome-Tioga Career Development Center Steve Moshak said he hopes events like this will help bring more people with disabilities into the workforce.

“This population is underserved in terms of jobs, and we want to help educate businesses by teaching them that there are other people who can work,” Moshak said.

Every year, the event provides mentors and mentees with the opportunity to spend time together on a business platform. The mentees were able to better understand business and specific positions in companies.

Broome-Tioga BOCES Director of Special Education Marie Migar told 12 News they have high hopes for their students to enter the workforce.

“We have high expectations for all of our students to achieve greatness, and we never, you know, strive to keep the bar low,” Meagar said. “A day like today really helps show our employers that our students, even though they are students with disabilities, they should still have equal access. We should always hold them to high standards because they can achieve it. We’ve seen this time and time again.”

After Tuesday morning’s ceremony, students went to their mentors’ businesses from 10 a.m. to noon to shadow employees and learn more about business.

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

“I am a client of Community Options and it was a great time to be a part of Options to become a job coach and go into the workforce,” Teagarden said.

Organizations in attendance included Achieve, AVRE, BOCES, Community Options, Access-VR, New York State Commission for the Blind, and STIC.

Participating companies also included Achieve and AVRE, as well as 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. .

Copyright VBNG, 2024. All rights reserved.