In this week's Teacher of the Week brought to by Springbrook, we head to the Broome-Tioga BOCES campus in Binghamton.

IT Specialist instructor Mocca Shabaz is helping students gain real-world experience while still in high school. 

"We have a very diverse population that comes to BOCES and part of what makes what we do special is that we really do try to address the individual needs of the students. So we have got varying degrees of ability and and aptitudes, and we are able to get specific in terms of our teaching to meet the needs of each student so they can achieve their goals."

The goal is to prepare students for opportunities in higher education or employment. And Shabaz said he works to make sure they are prepared for both. 

Part of the course includes a co-op where students work as IT techs in school districts.

"These are hands-on IT roles they do. They fix computers, Chromebooks, work with the networking team and the engineering team and all of our technical teams in the South central region. So he is definitely preparing the kids, said Phil Fata from BOCES South Central Regional Information Center (RIC).

Fata helps place the students and is impressed by how prepared they are, not just on a technical level but also on their social skills, something Shabaz emphasizes in his class.

"So there's the old cliche that people who do I.T. work aren't necessarily people, but we on day one, we train the students, teach them that every device that you're supporting, every problem that you're solving is attached to a person, said Shabaz.