Forty-four Proviso West High School students will be graduating with honors after their induction into the National Technical Honor Society last week.
The eligible students celebrated the first National Technical Honor Society induction ceremony along with their family and faculty at Proviso West, which was held April 4 at the high school’s little theater.
“This is not a traditional pathway, but it is a pathway that deserves to be recognized,” said Proviso West manufacturing teacher April Senase.
Isabel Martinez, whose son Diego Roa Martinez was inducted into NTHS, said she was grateful that the high school provides students opportunities at various careers.
“There are a lot of students who don’t want to keep studying,” Martinez said. “For them, this lets them have a career and be successful.”
An educational non-profit, NTHS mission is to honor, recognize and empower students and teachers in career and technical education. Since its founding in 1984, NTHS has provided about $300,000 in scholarships annually and boasts nearly 1 million alumni. It has about 100,000 active members. It strives “to help connect education and industry to build a highly skilled workforce.”
“This is a new chapter opening that I am proud and honored to be a part of,” said current interim-superintendent Alex Aschoff, who was in attendance along with board of education members Jennifer Barbahen and David Ocampo.
Proviso West student Jada Stone and her family following the NTHS induction ceremony. Amaris E. Rodriguez 
National Technical Honor Society inductees perform a candle lighting ceremony at the society’s Induction Ceremony at Proviso West High School on Thursday April 4, 2024 | Todd Bannor 
Hillside Mayor Joseph Tamburino addresses the audience at the National Technical Honor Society Induction Ceremony at Proviso West High School on Thursday April 4, 2024 | Todd Bannor 
Principal Elizabeth Martinez addresses the audience at the National Technical Honor Society Induction Ceremony at Proviso West High School on Thursday April 4, 2024 | Todd Bannor
To be part of NTHS, students must meet the national membership criteria and additional local membership criteria. At Proviso West, students must participate in a CTE pathway, program, major or coursework, and maintain an overall 3.0 unweighted GPA.
Hillside Mayor Joseph Tamburino served as the keynote speaker for the event. Tamburino expressed his delight in seeing the school community embrace trades as a viable option for students to pursue following graduation.
“There is nothing wrong with a young person’s desire to go to college and be whatever they want to be,” Tamburino said. “But the point is every major company in America today, all the manufacturing companies, cannot find enough qualified people to do the jobs they need to do.”
He also expressed the importance of trades and how crucial it became for more manufacturing and production to take place in the United States after the COVID-19 pandemic when international trade was incredibly delayed due to the global shutdown.
“This is where the jobs are,” Tamburino said. “When we look at, in our own village, the businesses we have in this town, where we have created the most jobs in the last five years, have been on the technical side of business. Not in an office but on the technical side”
Senior Jada Stone, who plans to pursue a career in medicine, said she was eligible to be part of NTHS by taking AP Computer Science, which counts as a technical class.
Two students also were inducted as officers for the 2024-25 school year: Lauren Greer as treasurer and Augustin Sanchez as secretary.
“The young people that we are honoring tonight, here, are going to provide us with that ability, to be able to bring those jobs back here to America where they deserve to be and where they belong to be,” Tamburino said.