Tech tour opens students’ eyes to possibilities

LYNN – Marshall Middle School eighth-grader Juan Avelino had planned to go to English High School until this week, when he visited Lynn Vocational Technical Institute.”I was thinking about English, but now I’m thinking about coming here,” he said. “This is kind of cool.”Avelino was part of LVTI’s annual eighth grade tour, where students from the city’s middle schools get a peek at what it would be like to attend a vocational school.Principal Diane Paradis said the tour is also still very much about trying to get out from under the stigma long attached to vocational schools.”We’re trying to get over that feeling that this is a dumping ground,” she said. “There is a five-part application process. Kids shouldn’t assume they’re getting in.”Gone are the days when attending a tech school was viewed as a last resort to keeping a child in school. Paradis said students need to fit certain criteria in order to be accepted.”We’re not looking for the top 10 percent of students,” she said. “We’re looking for those middle-of-the-road kids that might get lost.”Students began arriving from Marshall Middle School around 9 a.m. Monday. They watched a short film extolling the virtues of the school and visited each shop, where they heard from teachers and students alike on why they should consider LVTI over traditional high schools, like Classical and English.”The advantage of Tech is that you will learn a trade and you can still go to college,” said auto technology teacher Doug Balestrieri.Balestrieri told students that he went to Tech and then went to college, when he worked part-time in a garage making $15 per hour.”My friends were working for $8 per hour flipping burgers,” he said. “I had money to spend and I could get a car because I knew how to get an old car and fix it up.”Balestrieri also reminded the potential students that if they participate in the co-op program, which allows them to work, in their junior and senior years, they can make money while going to school.Metal fabrication student Jennifer Delacruz ushered eighth-graders into the busy shop.Delacruz said she chose LVTI over a traditional high school because she felt she could get more out of high school by combining traditional classes with learning a trade.”I plan to be a lawyer and will weld to pay for school,” she said, adding, “your best friendships will be born in the shops.”Anthony Fratichelli put on a welding demonstration for students. He said LVTI is a good choice for kids not planning to go to college because it gives them a trade, which gives them a head start in looking for work after high school.Jacob Kennedy said starting pay for an arc welder is about $30 -$45 an hour, and it only goes up from there.In LVTI’s Commercial Street annex, booths were laid out explaining each shop program, electives and clubs. Electrical shop had a light board and fuse box, cosmetology had hair to comb and nails to paint and culinary services handed out tiny cupcakes.Elizabeth Agbedun stopped to jump rope at the physical education booth. She said she wants to become an engineer and is thinking a lot about applying to Tech.”It’s more practical,” she said. “You actually get to do what you’re learning.”