A program at the WNY Tech Academy, housed in Byron-Bergen High School, is called Einstein Days, but the relative focus of the program isn’t on mass and energy. It’s on how to get ahead in the business world.
“Many of our pathways have a business focus,” said Catherine Bennett, principal of the academy. “Among our pathways are marketing and social media, accounting, and entrepreneurship. One of the things that we like to do here is, we like students to participate in developing the skills that they’re learning in those pathways. This is a kind of marketing and social media twist, but they’re all participating no matter what their pathway.”
Einstein Days are held twice a month at the school, and today’s program asked students to work in teams to develop a sales pitch to a group of judges on a plan to best market the tech academy to students in area schools.
The students have to come up with a plan, build a visual presentation, and select speakers to make the pitch. A professor from Genesee Community College coached them on public speaking.
“They researched everything there is that was available to them about the Tech Academy, their own experiences about how they were recruited,” Bennett said. “Every team formulated a different idea.”
The team in the photos is comprised of Dave Tetrault from Cal-Mum, Kendra Sanders from Batavia, Cameron Caroccio from Geneseo, Benjamin Taromind from Avon, and Jeremiah Cicatelli from Byron-Bergen.
“What I want them to get out of this is developing skills, confidence, public speaking, teamwork, collaboration, all the things that will make them valuable workers,” said Bennett.
