Dr. Heidi T. Riccio, Superintendent
565 Maple Street
Hathorne, MA 01937
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020
Contact: Kelsey Bode
Phone: 617-993-0003
Email: kelsey@jgpr.net
Essex Tech Senior Nominated as Career and Technical Education Presidential Scholar Candidate
DANVERS — Superintendent Heidi Riccio is pleased to announce that Kaitlyn Swenson, a senior at Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School, has been nominated as a Career and Technical Education Presidential Scholar.
Swenson is among five Massachusetts high school seniors nominated as a candidate for this honor by Education Commissioner Jeff Riley in December. Finalists for the award will be selected and announced by the U.S. Department of Education in April, and will attend an awards breakfast in Washington D.C.
Each year, the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program recognizes a maximum of 161 of the country’s most exceptional students. The program was expanded to include and celebrate the accomplishments of students studying career and technical education in 2015.
“Kaitlyn is truly an exemplary student, and has demonstrated a dedication to her education and to honing her career and leadership skills through on and off campus opportunities. It’s a pleasure to see her hard work recognized in this way,” Superintendent Riccio said.
Swenson is a senior in Essex Tech’s Information Technology Services program, and has a co-op position at Techevolution in Lynn, which she began in April 2019 and will continue through the end of this school year. She is also the lead editor/webmaster for the school’s literary magazine and the webmaster of Hawkspan.net, a student news website that features interviews, news articles, portfolios, projects and more.
In addition, Swenson is a National Honor Society Student and a Red Cross Volunteer. She was selected to attend the Harvard Summer Coding Academy in the summer of 2018 where she completed a week-long course on the Python programming language run by the Harvard Student Agencies. Swenson also worked at Essex Tech during the summer of 2017 as an administrative assistant and as an Information Technology intern in the summer of 2018. She has been an honor roll student every trimester throughout her high school career at Essex Tech. Last school year, she also received her CompTIA A+ certification and she plans to take an exam to earn her CompTIA Network+ certification this year.
“The fact that I was chosen for this honor absolutely amazed me at first, but I have come to realize that it is a well-deserved representation of my accomplishments and how far I have come in my educational journey,” Swenson said. “My experiences as a student, employee and hobbyist have shown me that education is key to success. As a result, I have dedicated myself to being a lifelong learner.”
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