A school in Lackawanna County is offering students a hands-on learning experience that teachers say is unlike any other in the state.

LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. — It spans twenty feet long, has more bells, whistles, and rollers than you know what to do with, and offers a one-of-a-kind, hands-on learning opportunity for students diving into the world of printing.

“The most exciting part is seeing the kids, like, oh my gosh, look at this big machine, you know, this is, you know, just so much fun to work with compared to just seeing it on a video,” said Rebecca Rinella, Lackawanna CTC Print Production Technology Instructor.

Rinella, the Print Production Technology Instructor at the Career Technology Center of Lackawanna County, says thanks to a partnership with the Phoenix Challenge Foundation, the school now has a new flexographic press.

The press gives prospective students a chance to learn a growing trade at a level no other school in the state has.

“Just to have this available at the high school level is unheard of. Most schools, if they even have a press, it’s much, much smaller. So this is, this is a huge, huge deal for our school to, to have this in the classroom,” said Rinella.

Pumping out hundreds of vinyl stickers a minute, a new press of this size can cost somewhere between $300,000 to $500,000.

While this used one is a bit cheaper, the press itself and all the material to run it come at no cost as long as it’s used to teach the next generation.

“I work with the Phoenix Challenge Foundation, and they put the equipment in the schools, they provide all our consumables, they give me training on how to upkeep the machine. As long as we’re teaching this, their goal is really to get kids interested in the industry because there is such a high demand for it,” Rinella explained.

As rolls of stickers begin to pile up, Rinella says her students will be prepared for successful careers once they leave the classroom. “Hoping it’s a nice stepping stone to get people out into, um, whether it’s the local printing companies or if they wanna move, like anywhere in the world, they’re gonna find this style machine. So it’s, it’s something really like a lucrative career you can have right out of high school.”

While many might say print is dead, here at CTC, it’s alive and well.