LYNN — More of the city’s high school students will have a chance to become certified in a trade thanks to a $100,000 state grant.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) planning grant will allow for expanded after-school offerings at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute, which will build on its successful Technical After-school Program (T.A.P.) that offers high school students career-ready trade skills.
“We’re taking this to a little bit of the next level,” said Tech Principal Carissa Karakaedos. “It doesn’t make sense to reinvent the wheel if the T.A.P. program is successful. We want to build on that and offer vocational offerings to more students.”
Now in its third year, the Lynn Vocational T.A.P. program, started by Tech guidance counselor Brian O’Connell, was created to expand the school’s vocational opportunities to Lynn high school students who don’t attend Lynn Tech.
Much like T.A.P., the new after-school program, tentatively scheduled to begin next fall and referred to as the “After Dark Program,” will expand vocational offerings to students who attend Lynn English, Lynn Classical and Fecteau-Leary high schools.
“There’s a need for this program because I don’t know of a career in a tech ed. school in Massachusetts that doesn’t have a wait list, including Lynn Tech, so there are students who have an interest in technical education that aren’t able to access it so we’re creating a mechanism in which they can,” said School Superintendent Dr. Patrick Tutwiler.
For example, at Tech, there were more students admitted than previous years, but this year’s freshman class is just 268 students, Tutwiler said.
With the new program, students would have a chance to become certified in four high labor-need vocational areas: manufacturing, culinary arts, healthcare, and computer science/Internet technology, according to Karakaedos, who said she’s hoping the courses draw 60-100 students.
“We’re looking at fields that are going to draw students, but also give them marketability and employability,” said Karakaedos. “The hope is we would expand this program to additional offerings and additional participation.”
The logistics of the program are still being determined, but students will likely take their core content classes at their traditional high schools and then head to Lynn Tech for their after-school vocational training. The certification would make them eligible for entry-level positions, or could be used on a college application, according to Karakaedos.
How much the program would cost annually has not been determined, but the grant will allow the school to plan for and run the program’s first year, she said.
“I’m so excited,” Karakaedos said. “I think it is so valuable. If we can bring a kid back in and re-engage them in some form, I’m all for that.”
