September is National Disaster Preparedness month and CJPS is on it! As part of the students' training for emergency preparedness, they were given a challenge to build their ideal disaster preparedness kit for a family of four in a "typical New England October." The kits were amazing! Special thanks to Mr. Cruickshank's dad of the Hamden CERT team, Staff Sgt. Allie Guerra of the CT Air National Guard, and CT State Trooper Tim Haroian for being our panel judges. At the end of the competition, the winning student (Apollo) had their dream $650 disaster kit PURCHASED for them courtesy of the Cruickshank Family. NICE JOB!

Some shop fun and ridiculousness... as usual. Some welcome back to school activities as well such as getting to know you "speed dating" and sophomore/junior egg toss! Fun times!

Field day was a ton of fun this year and resulted in Mr. C somehow being voted to be pied in the face! A special thanks to our juniors Jenna, Eliz, and Blake for decorating our new hallway display case put up by our carpentry shop!

The CT DOT went above and beyond opening their doors to the CJPS shop for the second year in a row for the Traffic Incident Management course designed to keep first responders SAFE on the roadways. The course is incredibly high-speed, eye-opening, and immediately useful to the students; many of whom have just begun driving themselves! This year we combined the seniors from Vinal Tech and Bullard Havens for the training which was an added treat. DOT Highway Operations Supervisor (and Vinal Tech graduate!) Aidan led the incredible training with his amazing staff and then did something that no one expected... let our CJPS students RUN THE OPERATIONS CENTER! If you called the operations center on Thursday, May 25th, there is a good chance that your call was answered by one of ten teams of students manning the desks with the operators that came to help our students for the day. Students not only answered calls but updated highway sign boards, entered construction data into Google Maps and Waze, and even checked on traffic issues around the State for the State Police! Just an amazing time. CT should be extremely proud of the work the DOT is doing to make the roads safer! A heartfelt thank you to the staff of the center and Aidan for going above and beyond for our students going into the first responder careers and also for buying all the students pizza; YOU ROCK.

An amazing recognition ceremony!! So well deserved by the students. Thank you to Senator Hochadel, Senator Lesser, Representative Chafee, Representative Belton, Regional Administrator for HHS R1 Mr. Kleinman, Commander Hayes, and Kim Heredia of FEMA for coming to recognize our great students!

Middletown Fire had beautiful weather for their 4th annual Kids Fair on Main Street in Middletown. CJPS students lent a hand helping keep kids safe and having fun... while having a little fun of their own. Fun time!

A huge thank you to Middletown Fire and Nelcon Towing for providing our EMT students an excellent opportunity to learn about vehicle extrication, scene safety, vehicle extrication safety, and trauma patient care from those that do it on a daily basis.

Mr. C was surprised by Principal Rivera, Mr. L, and the Freshman and Senior classes to find out he was selected as one of the 2023 Fund For Teachers Fellow program. 130 teachers from around the country were selected. Mr. C will be spending the summer in Japan learning how Japan does emergency management differently from the US. From earthquakes and volcanos to tsunamis and nuclear disasters! He also plans to eat all the sushi. All. Congrats Mr. C!