Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | August 16, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal 13 Workforce prep BY MONICA BENEVIDES Worcester Business Journal Senior Staff Writer Vocational schools have become magnet programs but aren't necessarily feeding students straight into the workforce Continued on Page 14 IMAGE/ADOBE STOCK.COM Y ou can ask almost anyone and they'll tell you it's true: e skilled trades has a workforce shortage. A March report from Washington state group PeopleReady Skilled Trades found while available apprenticeships and jobs in sectors like plumbing, roofing, carpentry and con- struction were increasing, sometimes as much as 50% within a month, postings were unfilled for a month or more. In Mass., this shortage is playing out in part in the state's vocational-technical high schools, which are facing increased demand despite the reported shortages. According to a February presentation from a special Mass. Board of Elemen- tary and Secondary Education meeting, some 18,560 completed applications were submitted to enroll as ninth grad- ers across 58 vocational schools and programs in the last academic year. Of those applications, 12,454 received an offer of admission, with 9,951 students enrolled as of Oct. 1. By those figures, only about 56% of applicants with completed applications were offered admission, with slightly less than that ultimately enrolling. In other words, according to the presen- tation at the BESE meeting, there were 1.75 applications for every available vocational program seat. Such figures have fueled questions about exactly who gets admitted to the state's highly sought aer voca- tional programs, what the rules are for applying, and what those students will do once they're done matriculating. In response to primarily the former, BESE approved on June 22 amendments to its regulations regarding vocational admis- sion procedures, loosening admission criteria and requiring schools to actively work to make sure their admissions policies include strategies to attract and enroll a student body, which has a comparable academic and demographic profile to the towns from which the vo- cational schools pull students. In short, the new rules lessen the requirements for academic excellence. e changes have divided stakehold- ers in the state's vocational-technical education programming, some of which say the changes have not gone far enough – arguing in favor of a complete lottery system not prioritizing academic superiority or social status, and others who say students who are academically Voke-tech to college The statewide rate for high school graduates matriculating to a four-year college is 55.7%. Nearly all Central Mass. vocational-technical schools are below that. % graduates going to School four-year college Source: Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School, Upton 73.8% Worcester Technical High School 41.5% Nashoba Valley Technical High School, Westford 40% Center For Technical Education Innovation, Leominster 38.8% Bay Path Regional Vocational Technical High School, Charlton 35.2% Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School, Fitchburg 33.9% Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School, Marlborough 33.2% Tantasqua Technical Division, Sturbridge 23.7% Joseph P. Keefe Technical High School, Framingham 21.3%

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