Queensbury Middle School’s Girls Represented in Trades (GRIT) club has been honored with a Champions of Change award from the New York State School Boards Association.
GRIT club members and their advisor Sam Gailor were presented with a banner during a Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 14. Mike Jarvis of the Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 773 also presented the girls with donated tools and materials, including tape measures, drills, impact drivers, safety glasses, hearing protection, gloves, levels and pliers.
“We get a stipend every year for tools, and we use those tools for our training program, for our mentoring program,” Jarvis said. “So what we did this year was we donated that entire stipend to Queensbury schools.”
GRIT club aims to empower girls to build rewarding careers in skilled trades through hands-on learning.
“In GRIT club we do lots of fun, different things to challenge the girls and have them become really well equipped to do different things with their hands,” said Gailor, who was an aviation electrician on military helicopters and now teaches sixth grade writing at the middle school.
Students in the club have done woodworking, plumbing, circuitry and explored careers in aviation.
“GRIT club allows us to engineer and do a lot of trades that usually we wouldn’t be able to do without a club,” said sixth grader Annabelle Moulton.
Queensbury Union Free School District has been encouraging students to explore future jobs in the trades through career and technical education, said Superintendent of Schools Kyle Gannon.
“New York State School Boards recognizes school districts for outstanding contributions, and they pick up on that through media articles. And they often will recognize a district for something that is a big deal,” Gannon said. “Having our female students involved in the trades is truly important to us.”
