A vote by Saugus residents on Jan. 25 to join 11 other communities in spending $317.4 million on building a new Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational School (Northeast Voke) in Wakefield is a sound investment for a number of reasons.
Northeast Voke’s current 1,200-student enrollment includes 170 Saugus students and the town’s share of the new school’s price tag averages out to $1.3 million a year for 20 years for the town.
The Massachusetts School Building Authority has committed $140.8 million to the project and the 11 other communities sending students to Northeast Voke — Chelsea, Malden, Melrose, North Reading, Reading, Revere, Stoneham, Wakefield, Winchester, Winthrop and Woburn — are being asked to shoulder their share of the new building’s cost.
Discussing the project during a Town Meeting Zoom call in October, Saugus Town Manager Scott Crabtree summed up the Northeast Voke project by saying: “There is no doubt in my mind that needs to happen.”
The Northeast Voke website explains why the school building needs replacing. The building hasn’t undergone a significant renovation since its construction in 1968. One-quarter of the school’s students are guided by individual education plans tailored to their learning challenges. The facilities they use need modernizing.
Northeast Voke administrators are forecasting a 26-percent enrollment jump to 1,600 students and contend constructing a new school is the best approach to absorbing the increased enrollment.
Plans to build a new Northeast Voke underscore vocational technical education’s importance in a world where technology training rivals traditional “voke-ed” skills, like plumbing, electrical wiring, and carpentry.
Technology overlaps medicine and the climate-change challenge. The new Wakefield school will offer courses in biotechnology and medical assisting. Saugus residents voted in 2017 to spend tax dollars on constructing a new high school that now offers a state-of-the-art education to town students. On Jan. 25, they have the opportunity to vote to give local youth who attend Northeast Voke the same educational opportunity.
Polls open in the Senior Center, 466 Central St., at 11 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. with voters asked to vote “yes” or “no” of favor of borrowing the $317.4 million.
We encourage a “yes” vote.
