The Windsor Strong Academy held its 2018 celebration Wednesday, culminating four weeks of studying the infinite ways students can improve themselves, their futures and their communities.

 

“What’s most important is that they’re confident in their ability to make important decisions and they gained that confidence here,” said teacher Lindsay Rogers. 

 

First-year Windsor Strong students made group presentations on different aspects of what makes a community strong, including diversity, finance, communication and volunteerism. 

 

 

 

“I think it was really cool and helped me learn more about the community,” said incoming 7th grader Natalia Ciborowski.

 

“I never looked at the community and realized how intertwined the businesses were. I always thought they were trying to take the other out,” said incoming 9th grader Frank Slavitsky.

 

Slavitsky was part of the finance group. Those students plan to produce a commercial touting the benefits of living in Windsor.

 

The communication group wants to create a game night to increase face-to-face communication. A number of the other groups, including the high school mentors who worked during the program, want to develop a volunteer club.

 

“They will help make this community stronger and this world a better place,” said mentor Cooper Bump.

 

 

 

Second-year students presented their future pathways, outlining professional goals and the steps they will take to reach them.

 

“We went into it telling them that this plan was for right now. They’ll grow and change and their plan may chance,” said Rogers. 
Incoming 9th grader Zach Hagerman developed his plan to become a teacher.

 

“I started to think about it this summer. We met a lot of people and they talked about putting your likes together. Mine led me to teaching,” said Hagerman. 

 

The students spent last Thursday speaking to over a dozen professionals from seven local companies as part of the Windsor Strong Career Exploration Event. Other professionals and mentors have spoken to the students over the past four weeks.

 

“I’ve learned to always be positive, become a leader, never doubt yourself, be open to anything and enjoy life,” said Kayla Dean. 

 

“We wanted them to be exposed to the process of developing a plan for a career, for going to college, or for going right into the workforce. Now they have those tools at their disposal,” said Rogers.

 

And they can use those tools for any number of possibilities.

 

“At Windsor Strong, there is no (single) right answer. There are a variety of answers they came up with. They are creating based on their personalities and that’s something we never want to dull,” said Windsor Strong Coordinator Stef Olbrys.