REEDLEY – The Valley’s next generation of professionals earned their stripes at this year’s Tiger ROmP skills exhibition at Reedley College.
On March 26, students and educators took over Reedley College for the annual Tiger ROmP Student Skills Competition. Through the morning and afternoon, students showed off their career technical skills while competing against similar programs from schools around the Valley.
Competitions and showcases included: firefighting skills, a police agility course, video production, animation, culinary arts, job interview skills and many more.
“This is an opportunity for the students to come and showcase what they’ve learned throughout their high school career,” said Frank Santillan, VROP instructor. “This is a great opportunity for them to do that.”
Showcases took place in various rooms and spaces across the campus, with the area around the gym serving as the main hub. Out in the grass, firefighting pathway students displayed their proficiency in essential skills, like raising a ladder, dragging people (or in this case, lifelike dummies) to safety and using a firehose with precision.
To their side, criminal justice students ran an agility course, which included vaulting obstacles, tires to push and a steep wall to climb over.
Inside the gym, robotics students put their creations to the test, playing a game in which robots had to pick up and move balls to score points. For the first part of each match, the robots operated solely on student-created programming. Students then took over with remote controls to close out each match.
Samantha Garner, robotics teacher at Orange Cove High School, explained that events like the Tiger ROmP don’t just give students the opportunity to utilize their skills, but also provide a space for students to express themselves and find their role in a unit.
“You can kind of see, naturally, which students jump out as a leader, and the other ones that are able to collaborate with other teams,” said Garner. “That’s the nice part; being able to actually see all that we do in class in the real world.”
One of Orange Cove’s robotics team members, Alex Lizaola, said that the Tiger ROmP brings increased challenge and a change of pace from typical classroom activities.
“Here, it’s crazy, because it’s way more competitive and you see more schools,” said Liazola. “It’s not the same people you see everyday.”
For Sanger High School industrial tech instructor Francisco Luna, he appreciates opportunities like the Tiger ROmP as a way to better simulate real-world working conditions. Some of his students participated in the construction competition, which saw teams measuring, cutting and hammering lumber to assemble a pony wall, all under the early afternoon sun.
Reflecting on what VROP brings to the region as a whole, Luna emphasized the importance of exposing students to different kinds of career pathways.
“I think it really benefits the kids to just see what else is out there if they choose not to go to college,” said Luna. “There’s a lot of careers where they can make good money, get good jobs and do something they enjoy.”
Once the day’s competitions wrapped up and students took a break for lunch, attendees gathered in the gym for the awards ceremony. Each student who participated in the Tiger ROmP will receive a certificate of participation, but the top three individuals or teams from each of the numerous categories were granted medals.
In addition to the individual awards, all participating schools were competing to win the overall top spot for their respective division. Any placement in a competition, from sixth to first, contributed points to a school’s overall score, with a shiny cup trophy on the line for each of the two divisions.
After a ceremony filled with cheers and excitement, the event concluded with Kingsburg High School taking the small schools division, and Reedley High School snagging the large schools division.
