The School committee will need about $58,000 to start the program in the first year.
Chicopee Comprehensive High School culinary arts teacher Karl Krawczyk, left works with Jake Flaucher 18, a senior and Sarah Stone 17, a junior, in culinary class. The School Committee Wednesday voted to add a new vocational program to the school.
CHICOPEE – The School Committee voted to expand its vocational courses by adding a new program in computer design and visual communications to help meet the increasing demand of students interested in career technical courses.
The committee voted 9-0 Wednesday to approve the program, but it will have to wait until it receives more information about state and federal funding to schools before educators know if they can afford the cost of purchasing equipment and hiring staff.
“This is the first step. Hopefully we will get this in place,” School Committee member Michael J. Pise said.
He and Superintendent Richard W. Rege Jr. said they feel students who graduate from the program should be able to find jobs, especially since companies are starting to do work such as website design themselves instead of hiring outside consultants.
The program, which would be offered under the career technical or vocational department, would teach students skills relating to website design. Students would learn about advertising, marketing, graphic design, photography and animation, among other concepts,.
Faced with a long waiting list of students interested in vocational education, last year career technical department director Kenneth R. Widelo and other teachers conducted and extensive study and proposed the school add as many as five new programs to the 10 that it already offers.
Design and visual technology is the easiest and least expensive to add. The school's photography teacher is certified to teach the subject, so in the first year, it would only cost the school about $58,000 to buy equipment. In the second year, a new instructor and about $50,000 more in equipment would be needed, the study said.
“I am very hopeful, I'm cautiously optimistic the money will be there for this,” Rege said.
The other thing that makes it an attractive program is Comprehensive High School, where the career technical program is housed, has little additional space for new career technical education programs and the courses would require no special space, just a classroom or two, he said.
“I really want this to happen, I see no downside to this,” said School Committee member David G. Barsalou, an artist and recently-retired Springfield teacher who taught computer design.