Ulster BOCES

Nearly 100 Ulster County high schoolers who attend dozens of different half-day Ulster BOCES Career & Technical Center programs have been busy practicing their skills in preparation for the New York State (NYS) SkillsUSA competition, to be held at the NYS Fairgrounds in Syracuse this week. Competitors will showcase their hands-on expertise with current industry standards in dozens of occupational areas while also demonstrating their career-readiness skills, such as teamwork, communication, professionalism, and leadership. Those who place first in their competitions will advance to compete at the national level in Atlanta, Georgia this summer. 

The Ulster BOCES entourage of 96 young professionals traveling to the state-wide showdown on April 24 includes six young professionals from the Hospitality, Culinary Arts, and Pastry Arts program, who are preparing for the competition under the tutelage of Culinary Arts instructor Elise Macur. 

Among them is returning competitor Nashaun Fontanez, who is from the Kingston City School District (KCSD). Nashaun will be competing in the Baking and Pastry Arts competition, and said his competition prep has been a journey that took him from feeling deeply uncomfortable and insecure to feeling full of confidence. He will be debuting a new cake design at the State competition that he believes will be less conventional and more artistic than the cakes his competitors will be preparing. 

“I have really loved the process of getting here, where I am ready,” said Nashaun, noting that his skills improved with each week of practice. Through the competition preparation, his bond with Chef Macur also grew. “She has helped me so much, mentored me, and will be there watching and supporting me. I feel very ready with the work and determination that she has put into me. I am confident!” 

“Nashaun truly impresses me everyday! He is deep in practice for competition. I've never seen someone so devoted,” said Chef Macur, who staged several all-day mock competitions over the past several weeks to help her young chefs prepare for the event. 

In a moment of reflection, Nashaun attributed his initial lack of confidence to the unrealistic TikTok reels he’d been watching of flawlessly decorated pastries. “Watching the TikTok videos made me feel so awful about myself because they could bake these beautiful cakes, and I couldn’t,” he admitted. “But then I worked with Chef Macur every day, and she pushed me to ‘be me.’ She encouraged me to make mistakes and see where my mistakes were so I could fix them.”

Nashaun said Chef Macur inspired him to create a cake design that will be totally different from everyone else. His cake decor theme is “early spring in the woods,” which he will convey through piped flowers and colorization.  

While he hopes to secure a first-place finish in the event, Nashaun is also looking forward to networking and making connections with other competitors from 60 high schools throughout the state, something he enjoyed last year (he is even still in touch with someone from last year). He also noted that last year’s competition was the first time that he had ever stayed in a hotel away from home, something else he is excited to do.

Accompanying Nashaun are his classmates Caitlyn Rafferty of the Saugerties Central School District, who will be competing in Culinary Arts; Joseph Reese of the Onteora Central School District (OCSD), who will be competing in Food Preparation; along with Yovani Cantres of the Wallkill Central School District, Neveah Boler of KCSD, and Korben Schweizer of OCSD, who are members of the Quiz Bowl team. 

Caitlyn said that the upcoming competition has been slightly nerve-wracking, but after having gone through several staged trial runs, she feels ready. Her mother is an Ulster BOCES Culinary Arts alumna, and Caitlyn wanted that same opportunity. 

Joseph said he also feels confident—but not overconfident. “I like the competitive aspects, like having a goal and something to strive for,” he explained. “Something to get better at.”

The Culinary Arts program competitors will be performing knife cuts, creating salads, and breaking down a chicken to sauté with other ingredients. The Baking and Pastry Arts competitors have four menu items to create from scratch in five hours: a buttercream cake, an apple galette, chocolate chip cookies, and red pepper cheddar scones. 

The Culinary Arts Quiz Bowl will test participants’ knowledge of topics ranging from culinary math to kitchen sanitation to seafood identification. The Food Preparation competition will give participants the opportunity to demonstrate their skills with a knife, their ability to use kitchen equipment properly, and their ability to identify herbs and spices, and will then ask them to prepare a simple wrap sandwich and a macaroni  salad. 

“SkillsUSA is so important for this age group,” Chef Macur emphasized. “It challenges them—these competitions are not easy. Competing curates skill development, time management, creativity, pressure-handling, and confidence-building.” The competitors will also experience a job and college fair, as well as structured and unstructured opportunities to network with other high school students interested in the culinary field, she adds.

The impressive number of Ulster BOCES competitors this year can be attributed to the Career & Technical Center's new designation as a SkillsUSA "total participation" school. This designation provides a membership to each of the approximately 1,200 students who attend Ulster BOCES Career Pathways Programs and removes cost barriers for individual students attending events, such as competitions and other club activities, ensuring all young professionals have the same opportunity to build their skills and confidence in the workforce.

“Removing these economic barriers has generated excitement and facilitated involvement among our young professionals, who may not otherwise have been able to participate in these experiences,” explained Principal Joseph Salamone. He’s proud of the effort that the young professionals and their instructors from the many Career & Technical Center programs put into preparing for the competition. “This truly can be a life-changing experience, I am so excited to see the Ulster BOCES young professionals shine.”