To submit school announcements, click on image.
Local leaders in business, government and education put their heads together Monday in an effort to address opportunity gaps in workforce development for city students and adults.
Members of the Haverhill City Council’s Planning and Development Committee, spearheaded by Councilor John A. Michitson, looked at ways to ease worker shortages, expand opportunities for area students and enable more flexibility in student career training, particularly at Haverhill High School. His rationale for the meeting, he said, is the increased need for workers with career skills and an education.
“The world is changing and moving towards this model for each student to learn career skills in addition to preparing for college. Flexibility is the name of the game,” he said. The data shows that we need more career training opportunities, especially for disadvantaged students.”
He added, “The objective is to establish a seamless career-connected learning network to expand work opportunities for Haverhill students and adults.” He referenced a model used in Oregon, where organizations have “navigators,” or coordinators, who find the best career and education paths for each student, and Massachusetts’ recently enacted economic development bill which provides money for certain training programs.
“The network will strengthen existing programs, make them more collaborative and create more career training opportunities for all students, especially for the disadvantaged students,” he said. “What are some examples of specific outcomes? First of all, increased co-op and internship opportunities with businesses. This is a big one. And it turns out the governor just signed a $4 billion economic development law that has funding for businesses for certain types of internships that hopefully we can try to leverage.”
He noted Haverhill aims to increase vocational education opportunities for students by adding additional seats. Haverhill Superintendent Margaret Marotta, noted Department of Elementary and Secondary Education up until recently had a rule that a public high school could not offer the same program as its area vocational school. She explained, however, “If there is a waitlist and you can prove need, you can have a duplicate program” such as the city’s new certified nurse aide training program.
Haverhill Superintendent Margaret Marotta, Whittier Regional Vocational Technical School Superintendent Maureen Lynch, Keith Boucher of MakeIt Haverhill and Frank Bonet, executive director of MassHire’s Merrimack Valley Workforce Development Workforce Board were among those in attendance.
Tentative meetings are scheduled for some time in January with a larger meeting in February. The dates of both meetings were not available at the time of reporting.