JTC Offers Prom Dresses

Students Gain Job Experience

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The Job Training Coordination (JTC) class at Alliance High School has collected and prepared over 150 prom dresses, shoes and accessories for the students at AHS who need them.

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Project Prom was created this year to provide girls at AHS with the best possible prom experience. Through the generous donations of community members, the project will allow students at AHS to pick out a dress and accessories to wear to prom with no questions asked and at no charge.

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The JTC class, which is in its first year as a program, will have a kick off event on Friday, Mar. 6 from noon to 2:30 p.m. At this time, girls are welcome to visit room #228 to pick out the dress, shoes and accessories they would like for prom. 

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“They can try on a dress or try on a bunch of different dresses and whatever they like, they get to keep,” said Andrea Ciavarelli, the JTC teacher.

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The first 20 girls to attend the event will receive a free Ipsy bag full of makeup.  If a student can’t make it to the event, they are welcome to visit room #228 from now until prom to pick out a dress.

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There are plenty of dresses to choose from including short and long dresses, different colors and styles and a size range to ensure every student who needs a dress can have one.

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If you would like to donate a dress, shoes and accessories, the donations can be dropped off in the office at Alliance High School.

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This program not only helps the students at AHS, but it also provides the students in the JTC program with job training and skills they can use throughout their lives. The JTC program is a two-year career tech program for students with disabilities. It offers the students real-world job training and allows them to explore careers they would like to pursue following graduation.

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“We focus on giving them employability skills with the ultimate goal being having competitive employment upon graduation,” Ciavarelli said. “It’s for non-traditional career tech students, a student who is not on a college path per se.”

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The students are given multiple career experiences over the two-year program. They learn independent living skills like laundry, cooking, financial planning and cleaning- anything they need to know to live independently.

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Project Prom offered the students the chance to learn some of the basic skills like sewing and learning how to clean and mend the dresses that were donated.

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“It also teaches them about community service and how to be involved and help others,” Ciavarelli said.

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Ciaveralli and Teresa McMillen, the job coach, organize speakers and community partnerships to allow their students to learn about the various careers and to even tour the companies in Alliance where their students could potentially work. They are always looking for new partnerships and opportunities to expand their students' horizons when it comes to job opportunities and picking a career.

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The goal of the two-year program is to provide the students with the skills necessary to maintain a job following graduation. During the students’ junior year, they will learn a lot of the in-house skills and during their senior year, the goal is to have them out in the community more exploring the different career paths they are interested in.

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“We just really want to expose them to as many different job tasks as possible, so they can find things that they enjoy and find things that they don’t enjoy, so they can find a career. Something that they can build a life for themselves,” Ciavarelli said. “The ultimate goal is to connect more with the community.”

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The partnerships within the community are key to helping the students understand what is available career-wise in the community and allowing them to explore all opportunities available to them for when they graduate.

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“People hear students with disabilities and kind of hesitate,” Ciavarelli said. “These students are very able to perform any type of job task. We train them in house, so that when they go out on site, they are ready to go. We send a job coach with them, but they are able to do all the work independently. They have the same abilities as anyone else, it just may take a little while to understand the task. These are students you would definitely love to have work for you.”

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If you are interested in finding out how to partner with the JTC program, please contact Andrea Ciavarelli at ciavarellian@alliancecityschools.org or Teresa McMillen at mcmillente@alliancecityschools.org.