Macarons, chocolate chip cookies, oil changes, and tire repairs — East Hampton High School’s culinary and automotive students have mastered a wide range of skills over the last two years. The bakers have prepared pastries for the Bonac Brew coffee shop and catered school board meetings and special events. The mechanics have helped keep faculty and staff on the road, fixing flat tires and even performing state inspections. On Monday, on the cafeteria patio, they were part of the second annual graduation for these programs, a celebration of 13 students’ success.
“I’m so proud of our culinary and automotive programs. They allow students’ talents to come through in school. The traditional school setting is not for everyone, so the fact that we have a board of education, superintendent, and school district that support C.T.E. [Career and Technical Education] programs and give them equal value is so important to me,” said Sara Smith, the principal. “It allows students to find something that they love and are passionate about in school. I get to see how they change and how the programs help them grow once they have something in school that excites them.”
The automotive graduates are Sean Barros, Aaron Bistrian, Thomas Brunn, Alex Cabrera, Andres Coria, Juan Espinoza Flores, Austin Payne, and Cristian Ramirez Sanchez.
Thomas, who spoke on behalf of the automotive students, said he was struggling to stay awake in school before he joined the program. Going to the garage in the morning made all the difference.
“It broke up the school day a lot. We’d go there in the morning. It would wake me up through the day and when I came back to school my mind would be going and I would be able to focus more. I really struggle in the morning,” he said. “I know other kids in class have said the same thing. It’s really helpful and it really changed my grades too.”
Thomas was able to participate in an internship program, in which he worked on cars, earned money of his own, and received school credit. He’s attending Farmingdale State College for business management and hopes to start his own excavation company someday.
“This program taught me so much about moving on from your mistakes and learning from them,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t going to be a mechanic when I’m older, but I’ve always done this as a hobby and I’ve learned so much more that I can use every day in life as a side job and can continue to make money doing it.”
Tedd Page and Peter Fletcher teach the automotive students. In his remarks, Mr. Page said he reluctantly joined the program at the urging of J.P. Foster, the president of the school board, but he’s grateful that he did.
“It’s been a great asset to the district,” Mr. Foster said. “Tedd’s amazing. I walk in there and you see them engaged and you see how interested they are and how much time they put into it and how excited they are about it.”
Lylah Metz spoke on behalf of the culinary students — Joshua Barrera, Brionna Forrester, Harrison Jenkins, and Jack Mooney. While Lylah’s chocolate chip cookies are famous at the high school, her grandfather John Ryan Sr., a school board member, said she makes the best strawberry shortcake.
“The first thing I ever made were my chocolate chip cookies,” she said. “This program has meant everything to me. It really let me step out of my comfort zone with trying out different things, failing, and trying all over again. It really gave me hope and made me happy to be able to succeed.”
Lylah is going to the State University at Oneonta this fall, where she’ll study family and consumer science. Her dream is to come back to East Hampton High School to teach this program, where she learned so much about the ups and downs of life through baking.
“Macarons are so hard. It’s trial and error with those. I made a couple batches the other day and I even failed at them,” she said. “There are some days that they’re really good and there are some days that something just happens. That’s what my favorite thing about cooking is.”
Next up? Tiramisu.
“I’d love to make tiramisu. I’d love to try it out,” she said. “I’ve never made it before but I’d love to try and see how it tastes.”
Bridget Sokolowski, the guidance coordinator at the high school, hopes she brings that love of baking back to Bonac. “She’s going to be the best teacher ever. I hope she comes back and works here and doesn’t stay upstate,” she said. “It’s so great to see kids find an interest and home in on an interest and a career path.”