$120K State Grant To Bolster Essex Tech After School, Summer Programs

DANVERS, MA — Essex Tech will use a $120,000 state grant to enhance and increase its after-school and summer programs, including its series of integration learning academies designed to combine career technical and agricultural learning with academic skills to create engaging experiences.

The grant is through the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and will be used for programs before school, after school, vacation and summer (ASOST) programming.

Students who attend the academies can earn school credit and often return as student mentors for ensuing academies throughout the school year.

"My favorite events are the final competitions that come at the end of each integration academy," Assistant Superintendent Thomas O'Toole said. "The ASOST grant has extended our learning and in so doing allowed us to develop integration coursework during the actual school day."

Essex Tech plans to collaborate with Express Yourself, a learning organization in Beverly, to develop two new integration academies.

"We are grateful to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for these funds because they will support our students who have academic gaps due to the loss of learning during the pandemic," Essex Tech Superintendent Heidi Riccio. "The combination of academic and technical content creates deeper learning of the skills needed.

"All of this is done through project-based learning where student leaders act as mentors to their younger peers."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)