Essex Tech, Peabody, Salem High Schools Awarded MA Skills Grants

DANVERS, MA — Gov. Charlie Baker made a stop at Essex Tech in Danvers on Tuesday morning to reveal the recipients of the latest round of state Skills Capital Grant Awards targeting career and technical school programs in high schools and community colleges statewide.

Peabody Veterans Memorial High School, Salem High School and North Shore Community College were also among the 20 schools that shared $51 million in the latest grants from the state program that has awarded $200 million in grants over the past seven years.

"It's truly been a transformational partnership between us and the educational institutions that have been part of it," Baker said Tuesday morning. "It is something that I know we are enormously proud of and pleased with and we certainly hope that going forward the Commonwealth continues to appreciate these investments in students and young people, and others who are looking for an opportunity to build a career and build a life here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, are well worth making.

"They pay back time and time again."

Baker said that $500,000 in the latest round of grants will go to Essex Tech. North Shore Community College will receive $1 million, Peabody Veterans will receive $240,000 and Salem High will receive $169,000 for their CTE programs.

Officials said that when the Baker administration came into office one-in-five Massachusetts students were enrolled in career and technical education programming, and that number is now one-in-four students. The hope is it could be as much as one-in-two within a few years.

"This clearly is working," Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said. "It is our hope and desire to see you take this model and keep it going for the future success of these students and our Commonwealth."

The program, which began in 2015, was earmarked for $100 million in additional funding through the recently passed state economic developmental bill, which is designed to fund the Skills Capital Grant Awards program for at least the next five years.

About two-thirds of the investments made with the grants are directly aligned to reduce skills gaps in high-priority industry sectors, including health care, manufacturing, IT, and skilled trades. A percentage of the funding, about 5 percent, has been invested in multi-year strategic projects in manufacturing, healthcare and energy training programs which are projected to have a significant regional impact.

The Essex Tech funding will provide technology and equipment to support updating the groundskeeping and equipment operator vocational program.

The Peabody Veterans Memorial funding will provide the high school technology and equipment to modernize the culinary arts program.

The Salem High School funding will provide the high school technology and equipment to support updating the programming and web Development vocational program laboratory.

The North Shore Community College funding will provide the college technology and equipment to modernize a health care simulation center to support medical assisting, allied health, and human services high school partnerships, industry credential training, certificate, and degree programs.

(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.)