Wicked Local Build it and they will come, is a phrase commonly used when something is built to attract more people. This is certainly true in the case of the new Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School, which opened the doors of its $145 million new school in September 2019. Due to the limited capacity of the new building, which was designed for 628 students, students from non-member towns including Belmont and Watertown are not guaranteed admission.
Two out of the seven Belmont students from the class of 2025 who completed the Minuteman application process were offered admission, and one has enrolled. The number of Belmont students who applied to the Minuteman before the new school opened and before the town became a non-member has decreased. There were 20 students in the class of 2023 who applied, and 19 were offered admission for the fall of 2019.
By Joy Hosford, Ross Cristantiello and Mike Gaffney
Saugus Advertiser
Major changes could be on the way for Massachusetts vocational schools. With more students applying and advocates pushing to make admissions more equitable, the process by which a student actually gets into a vocational school could be changed drastically.
Massachusetts Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner (DESE) Jeffrey Riley proposed changes to the admission process earlier this year, and according to State House News the proposed changes .would give schools flexibility to set their own policies that promote equitable access while restricting the use of criteria that disproportionately exclude students in protected classes.
Wicked Local
Major changes could be on the way for Massachusetts vocational schools. With more students applying and advocates pushing to make admissions more equitable, the process by which a student actually gets into a vocational school could be changed drastically.
There are several catalysts fueling the push for a change to admissions. Tech school advocates say they lack access to middle school students and students of color in underserved areas, meaning a teach school education is unfamiliar or unavailable to those populations; at the same time, enrollments are growing faster than physical plants, limiting the number of slots available to all students.
COVID-19 profoundly affects school-run vocational programs wickedlocal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wickedlocal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Wicked Local
This is the first in a series of stories exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted vocational technical schools in the region.
Inside one of Minuteman Regional High School s robotics labs, a small group of students gathers around a massive machine. Next to them, Robotics and Automation instructor Tina Collins looks on. The walls around the group are plastered with the blueprints of spaceships. Silently, 3D printers toil away on one side of the room, slowly constructing tiny robotics parts.
Inside the machine at the center of the gathering, green lasers seamlessly etch the Minuteman logo onto wooden cribbage boards. Carpentry students made the board, and were now collaborating with Collins and her robotics students to finish them with the laser machine. Collins and the students laugh as they peer eagerly into the machine, watching tiny lines form on their boards.