Voc Ed Group Fires Back at DESE Mandate

Above, Karen Maguire, Superintendent of Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical School in Franklin, and Treasurer of the Mass. Association of Vocational Administrators.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, under Healey's purview, released regulations this year requiring career technical schools with waitlists to use lotteries when selecting students, a shift from the status quo in which schools can select students based on grades, attendance and discipline records.

However, CTE schools around the state voiced "deep concerns" with the proposed regulations. School officials argue that criteria such as disciplinary records, absences and candidate interviews help them determine if a student is ready to be in a different environment than typical classrooms.

The education board voted in 2021 to reform the admissions process to remove requirements that grades, attendance, discipline records and counselor recommendations had to be used in admissions, but only four of the 29 CTE districts in Massachusetts opted to stop using the selective criteria.

While the legislature has shown sympathy for the position of most Voc Schools, those in the field aren't taking chances and MAVA (Mass. Association of Vocational Adminstrators) recently wrote a strongly worded letter to DESE on the subject. 

Karen Maguire, Superintendent of Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical School, and Treasurer of MAVA signed the letter along with four other officers of the organization.