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Date: 10/5/2022
WESTFIELD — Westfield Technical Academy’s Tiger’s Pride hosted a visit from Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and state Secretary of Education James Peyser on Sept. 27 for the awarding of $24 million in Skills Capital grants, the second round this year, to 14 vocational schools across Massachusetts.
Westfield Technical Academy (WTA) received a grant of $1.014 million for its manufacturing technology and electrical wiring shops, its sixth grant from the Skills Capital program. Since 2015, WTA has received over $3 million for equipment and expansion in the aviation, allied health, culinary, electrical wiring, and manufacturing programs.
Last spring, manufacturing technology received $246,306 from the program and purchased computer numerical control (CNC) technology for all of the milling machines on the underclassmen side, and upgraded the technology on the upperclassmen side.
At this event, Mayor Michael McCabe welcomed the governor and his team, state Rep. Kelly Pease and School Committee Vice Chair Bo Sullivan, and the staff and administrators from the vocational schools across the state that were receiving grants.
“We can’t wait to see what this brings for you,” McCabe said, addressing the schools.
“Thank you for your dedication to keeping career technical education relevant.
This program has truly made a difference,” said Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski to the governor, before introducing him.
Baker also talked about the origin and impact of the program: “I can’t stress how important this program has been. We need a lot more of these kinds of people with these kinds of skills.” He said it was an experiment in 2015, when the administration along with Peyser put out the first round of Skills Capital grants.
“We put the thing out and received five times the amount of applications than money. We made the decision to embed skill building for the first time and put it into an economic bill. We took the position that human capital inventory for the economy is vital. After today, we will have given out $153 million in Skills Capital grants,” Baker said.
Baker said he and Polito have both seen the benefit of the program. Speaking to WTA administrators, he said they turned a mechanical shop classroom into a digital classroom, and a whole lot more kids, faculty and employers got interested in it.
“This program has a ton of momentum, and makes a difference to the schools, the kids and the employers. It’s another brick in project-based learning,” Baker said.
Polito said on the administration’s inaugural tour, she and Baker visited Springfield Technical Community College, which was showcasing CNC machines. She said at the time, all of the funds from the state were supporting the traditional academic track.
“We flipped this whole strategy around. It took a leap of faith, vision and a lot of buy-in,” Polito said.
“We also changed the perception of what it means to come through career technical vocational education. Thank you for flipping education and for helping us to perfect this program,” Polito added. “Well done everyone, it’s been an honor and a pleasure.”
Peyser then announced the awards for the 14 schools from the seacoast to Western Massachusetts. He said the grants were going to three tranches, to upgrade equipment and labs, expand facilities, and offer after-school opportunities to the workforce.
Peyser said this second round of funding this year became available through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, and there will be another $150 million that has already been adopted to give out this year.
He said the grants have already increased enrollment in the programs. “There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of students whose lives will be affected,” he said, adding that Massachusetts has the strongest vocational technical education program in the country.
WTA Principal Joseph Langone said that $900,000 of the $1.014 million the school is receiving will go to manufacturing technology, and the remainder to electrical wiring. The money will be used to open and outfit a new classroom, for more new CNC machines, to upgrade the sophomore computer lab in manufacturing tech, and to purchase new equipment to meet state curriculum frameworks in the electrical wiring classroom. Langone said the school would not have been able to make the upgrades without the grant.
Czaporowski said the district is already applying for the next round of funding.
“The Baker-Polito administration has been instrumental in supporting students in career technical education, so when they start careers they’re relevant. The perception has changed in the last eight years,” he said.