Two area regional high schools are sharing in state Skills Capital Grant awards, aimed at training young people and adults with the newest technologies used by local employers.
Greater Lawrence Technical School, Andover, was awarded $220,000 for advanced manufacturing and metal fabrication, while Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School, Hathorne received $121,000 to bolster its construction trades program. Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Rosalin Acosta and Education Secretary James Peyser visited Peabody Veterans Memorial High School Monday to present the grants.
“The Skills Capital Grants have helped give thousands of young people opportunities in high-demand jobs, and the grants have had a tremendous impact on students, schools and local businesses,” said Baker. “These significant investments made over the past six years in this program with our partners in the legislature will help train students to adapt to the changing needs of our economy.”
Greater Lawrence Tech will expand its advanced manufacturing shop and upgrade equipment in the metal fabrication and joining technologies lab. The new equipment will help expand the school’s Career Technical Institute by increasing the number of students enrolled in afternoon and evening programs.
Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School will expand career and technical education opportunities in the construction trades for students in both the day program, afterschool and adult evening classes.
The institutions are among 47 dividing $9.7 million in grants. The awards mark $102 million in total granted to high schools, colleges and other educational organizations since the program began in 2015.
Approximately 68% of the money has been awarded to traditional high schools and vocational technical schools, 24% going to colleges and another 8% to community-based organizations. A focus of the more recent grant awards has been the launch and expansion of the Governor’s Career Technical Initiative, which supports vocational-technical schools in expanding their impact by operating programs in the afternoons for local high school students and in the evenings for workers and adult learners.