The Red Hook Central School District is seeking to increase its hands-on career training and project-based learning options through two proposed programs at its high school. 
The district is planning to implement a welding career and technical education pathway and an exciting career and technology exposure program called the “Winners Circle Project,” in which students across three classes would act as a functioning auto racing organization (watch a video about the program above).
Both programs require approval from residents during the May district budget and Board of Education election vote in order to move forward. 
The board at its meeting this month approved six new classes for the high school next year, including Welding I; the three Winners Circle classes in automotive building, marketing and graphic design; IB Literature and Performance; and AP Cybersecurity. 
High School Principal Dr. Kyle Roddey called Winners Circle “an all-compassing program” that crosses over several areas of study and will involve collaboration between students in the different classes. In all, 35 students could take part in the program each year. 
“It is an additional example and follows our ongoing attempts to provide more career and technical opportunities that align with the real world and incorporates project-based learning,” Roddey said.
IB Literature and Performance would become another option for students pursuing a full International Baccalaureate diploma and under the recent IB English for All initiative, filling a need identified by the English Department in evaluating the success of the initiative. The class would become a second option for students during their junior and senior years that would satisfy the basic English requirements of the IB diploma while incorporating elements of theater education. AP Cybersecurity, like welding and Winners Circle, is a future-focused class providing career exposure and growing the school’s computer science pathway. 
“It’s great to see the breadth of new offerings,” Board member Russ Crafton said, and the “refreshing of the various courses of the high school.” 
Roddey and other members of the high school faculty gave presentations on all six potential new classes for 2026-27 before the board voted on their approval. Watch the meeting here and learn more about the two proposed new programs below. In addition, Winners Circle will be discussed in depth at the board’s Feb. 19 meeting. 
Both the welding and Winners Circle programs were proposed by, and will be led by, technology teacher Steve Hutman. 
Welding Pathway 
The New York State Education Department recently approved Red Hook’s proposed welding program as a CTE pathway. Students who complete such a pathway program can use that to satisfy a graduation requirement, taking the place of passing a second social studies Regents exam. The full four-year welding pathway includes the existing Design and Drawing for Production, Career and Financial Management, and Materials Processing: Metal courses, as well as the now-approved Welding I class, a still-to-be approved Welding II class and a capstone independent study project. Welding II would need board approval to begin with the 2027-28 school year. 
Roddey praised the trades as an area that is “AI-proof,” with a dearth of skilled workers making for a fertile job market. “Overall, as a society, there’s increased focus in the trades,” he said. 
In addition to the graduation credit, students would be able to obtain an American Welding Society certification. “It’s something they can bring anywhere,” Roddey said, “whether they want to go into the ironworkers union or work for a contractor, that’s something that will set them a cut above the rest.” 
Red Hook currently has four students who attend Dutchess BOCES’ two-year welding program. Roddey explained, the demand to explore the welding field is even higher, with more than 30 ninth graders currently in Red Hook’s introductory metal working course. 
By establishing its own in-house program, Red Hook would save money on those spots, while more completely satisfying student demand. And, without the bus ride each day to the Town of Poughkeepsie and back, students would be able to attend more of Red Hook’s class offerings in other subjects. 
Hutman, who has a background in welding, said students often tell him they signed up for his introductory metal class “‘because we heard we can weld.’ It’s got the ‘wow’ factor.” 
In order to institute the program, the district is planning on including a roughly $1.1 million upgrade to its technology department’s welding resources as part of a probable capital project proposition on the May ballot. 
Red Hook would become the seventh high school in the state to have such a welding program, outside of BOCES programs.  
The Winners Circle 
Winners Circle is a yearlong program through the non-profit Winners Circle organization, in which students act as a functioning auto racing team in a project-based setting. Students in one course build a Shelby Cobra sports car from scratch, using a pre-provided kit, while students in a visual communications art course and a marketing and media relations business course learn and use public relations, marketing, journalism and video production skills to promote their car and organization. Winners Circle teachers will push in to those classes once a month. 
Students also take several field trips to speak with experts in each field and receive real-world experiences in places such as BMW’s east coast headquarters in New York City, and have opportunities to shadow professionals and network with other students from other schools.  
The school receives a racing simulator as part of the program and, throughout the year, students compete against other high schools – including several nearby schools already engaging in the program – earning points in various ways, including through its promotion and business elements. It all culminates with a trip to Lime Rock Park in Connecticut to watch professional drivers race their car. 
“Students need hands-on learning,” Hutman said. “This, as a project-based learning tool, is the pinnacle of that. It’s not just a supped-up shop class. It’s encompasses other curriculum, as well.” 
Hutman leads an automotive club at the school that has more than 15 members. The students are excited by the possibilities Winners Circle presents. 
“It’s such a well-rounded project,” junior Shepherd Cohen said. “Regardless of if I want to go to school for business, or if I want to go to school to keep learning how to be a mechanic, or I want to go into marketing and advertising … it all serves to teach people how to execute a long-term project. I don’t think there’s any class that can teach you long-term projects in that amount of time.” 
The district intends on including Winners Circle in its annual budget proposal, which must be approved by the board and ultimately by residents in the May vote. Entry to the program is roughly $150,000, though around $88,500 of that would be reimbursed by state aid. The kit to build the car is roughly $50,000; districts recoup most of by auctioning off the car at the end of the program cycle and they can use the money to purchase the next year’s kit. The actual cost of the program each year, Roddey estimates, is roughly $71,000. The program would not require the high school to hire additional staff 
“You get a lot,” Roddey said of the program’s value, noting the per-pupil expense is lower than some other experiential programs already offered to students. “This is a completely immersive experience, where kids are working during the day but also engaging in these field trips, in this competition and project-based learning.”