WATCH: A tour inside Middletown Schools project
Myszka wants to work in construction and with the help of Middletown High School staffers — and the district’s Business Manager George Long — the eager young man was connected with the head of the construction crew building the $96 million project on the high school campus.
“I want to be an electrician and I feel like doing this will give me experience and knowledge about construction and the trade,” he said during a recent tour of his future, part-time work site about 50 yards from his high school.
He is surrounded by construction workers and building specialists — many of whom are operating heavy machinery — as they put together the Butler County city’s newest school and modernize the adjacent high school on North Breiel Boulevard.
MORE: Middletown’s biggest school construction project ever
“It’s kind of overwhelming at first but it’s pretty cool,” said Myszka over the din of machinery.
The new middle school and renovated high school projects are scheduled to be completed by the opening of school in August 2018, though some modernized high school classrooms will be ready for use by students this spring.
George Long credited construction project superintendent Bill Varney of Conger Construction Group for giving the teen such an early exposure to a possible career.
“At Middletown we are so excited to have a student like Brandon working on our site, with our construction superintendent and it’s an opportunity for us to link our students to our construction project,” Long said.
“Our internship program at the high school is designed to get kids in the workforce to see what those jobs are really like — providing real-life opportunities — so that they know moving forward what they want to do with the rest of their life,” he said.
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Middletown High School Principal Carmela Cotter praised Varney and the construction crews for extending themselves in helping Myszka learn.
“Middletown students reap great rewards from being mentored by members of our community. This mentoring includes sharing of stories and experiences and provides a framework in which students begin to see themselves in the bigger picture of responsible adulthood,” Cotter said.
“In internships, this mentoring goes a step further by including brief introductions to the professional world of work. Transitioning our students from the classroom into the community with the benefit of our business partnerships makes a lasting positive impact on our young people and grows our community with the wealth of everyone’s talent,” she said.
For Varney, it’s a personal way to continue a generational bridge of mentoring youth.
As a young man, veteran construction officials welcomed him into the trade.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t have two men see something in me I didn’t see for myself and mentor me,” Varney said.
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