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Date: 11/6/2019
CHICOPEE – The future direction of the Career and Technical Education (CTE) program was the topic of discussion at a special school committee meeting held in Chicopee on Oct. 23.
The CTE, according to the mission statement on the Chicopee Comprehensive High School website, “provides secondary students of Chicopee with an educational complement.” Students in CTE “will graduate with solid academic preparation along with advanced technical skills necessary for acceptance to post-secondary education.”
Currently, students have the option of nine different programs. Offerings include Automotive Technology, Business and Information Technology, Carpentry, Culinary Arts, Design and Visual Communications, Drafting, Electricity, Information Support Services and Networking, Machine Tool Technology, and Metal Fabrication and Joining Technology.
Included in the current offerings is the Horticulture program which, according to School Committee Member David Shryver, is expected to be made available to students within the next year.
The center of the school committee discussion was two future course offerings Plumbing and Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC), Schryver said.
Shryver said while they “want to put the program in place, especially HVAC and Plumbing,” the decision the district is faced with is to decide whether to first hire teachers and then build the program around the educators, or to build the programs and try to hire teachers to fill the positions.
He said he was in favor of finding teachers before the programs begin to be built. “Where I would like to see it go is that we try to get qualified personnel first,”?he said.
The district is in the process of expanding the maintenance building at Stefanik Elementary School to accommodate the Horticulture program.
Ultimately, Shryver said the school committee decided to postpone the discussion for now.
“We just kind of tabled it at the moment, and we’re going to be looking into more over the next couple of months,” he told Reminder Publishing.
While the HVAC and Plumbing programs are on hold for the time being, Shryver said the district does have the space available for the programs to be added in the future.