#inform-video-player-1 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }

#inform-video-player-2 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }

For more than two decades, students at Northview High School have had an opportunity that not many students in the state have.

Tony Migliorini’s Automotive Services class gets the opportunity to experience first hand the ins and outs of how to work on cars and gain valuable life skills that will stick with them forever.

A culminating part of the class is getting to go to the Ivy Tech Automotive Skills Challenge in Terre Haute each year. For a better part of Migliorini’s tenure at Northview, his students have not just gone to the competition, but thrived in it.

This year was no exception as Northview had two students take home top honors as senior Riley Craig and junior Mason Walters earned recognition at the competition.

Craig received a $1,000 scholarship for receiving second place in the senior division with Walters placing first in the junior division and earning a full set of tools for his efforts.

“There’s about six to eight different stations that are set up and we get about 10 minutes on each one,” Walters said of the competition. “Whether it be measuring voltages, looking at fluid capacities of cars, a drive train module where we had to identify parts, it was an all-encompassing experience.”

In total there are more than 200 students that represent eight different high schools from the area.

One of the great things about the program at Northview is that students are not only gaining experience that will help them in everyday life, but also upon graduation, will walk out of Northview already having a majority of the work done to get a specialized certification through Ivy Tech.

“With it being a dual-credit class, Riley has been in this program for two years and will graduate with a certificate in maintenance and light repair,” Migliorini said. “That gets him really close to earning a technical certificate and that $1,000 scholarship will get him on his way to getting that.

“Over the last few years, shop classes have really dwindled but with the new state requirements, I think it has woken everyone back up a little bit and realized how important skill trades like this are. It’s a field that’s in high demand too so we’re very lucky that the shop has made it all these years and that we can still train people to go get good jobs.”

Like any student would before a test, Migliorini’s students go through a comprehensive list of things to review roughly two to three weeks before the competition with review sessions leading up to the day before.

While some students choose to pursue a career in the automotive field, others like Craig and Walters take part in the program because they want to hone in on a very useful life skill.

“This skill I’m going to be able to have and use for the rest of my life,” Walters said of the program. “I don’t plan on going to be a technician or anything like, but we all will have to work on our car one day and I’ll have the knowledge that I gained from this program.”

With it Automotive Services program being a three-hour program that meets every single day for 180 days according to Migliorini. That amount of time commitment allows the students in the program to not only hone their skills, but also develop friendships with others who share their same interests.

“We do put a lot of time into this and getting to go to the competition at Ivy Tech allows our kids to really show off all of their hard work,” Migliorini said. “In the classroom and in the shop the kids get to know each other very well. Over time it kind of becomes like a family because of how much time you spend with each other.

“I teach this program knowing that some of them have varying interests and goals too. Some want go out and be technicians and own their own shop one day but also have others who just want to know how to work on their own car. We cater to both because we want everyone who is interested to be able to get something out of this program.”

It’s a special program that Northview is taking full advantage of and the results of the program simply just speak for themselves.

#inform-video-player-3 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }