nothin New Vo-Tech School Plans 2013 Launch | New Haven Independent

New Vo-Tech School Plans 2013 Launch

Thomas MacMillan Photo

In the fall of next year, 120 city high school kids will report to a new Long Wharf campus to earn college credits and prepare for biotech and culinary jobs, according to the man tapped to make that happen. 

Steven Pynn laid out that vision Monday night as he became the first principal of a new vo-tech school the city is planning in conjunction with Gateway Community College.

The plan emerged as a response to calls for adding vo-tech to New Haven’s otherwise college-oriented school-reform drive.

Pynn, who spent the last 14 years at the helm of the top-performing Sound School Regional Vocational Aquaculture Center, will turn over that job to history teacher Rebecca Gratz.

The school board Monday night approved Pynn’s transfer to the new position, effective July 1.

Melissa Bailey Photo

Pynn (pictured) has already been working with Gateway to plan for the school. The city is looking for funding and state approval. Pynn declined to say how much the school would cost; it would inhabit the Long Wharf campus that Gateway is abandoning as it moves downtown.

The school would serve students in their 11th, 12th and 13th year of school, Pynn said. It wouldn’t be a self-contained school; it would be a part-time afternoon program where high-schoolers from other schools report for part of the day, as they do at Educational Center for the Arts.

Students from five city high schools would report to the school for two and a half hours at a time, Pynn said. In doing so, they’d earn high school credits, college credits and industry certificates preparing kids for work. The building would double as an incubator” for businesses and a job training center, so kids could get real-life experience in the workplace, he added.

The school is about expanding the menu for New Haven residents and high school students,” he said.

Mayor John DeStefano’s school reform drive has focused heavily on gearing students for college, including launching a New Haven Promise scholarship program available to kids who keep up good behavior and grades. Critics have said the drive leaves out other students who aren’t on the college track. That criticism helped spur DeStefano to head to Massachusetts last year to check out a successful vo-tech high school —and figure out how to replicate it back home.

The city has Sound School, which trains kids for careers in aquaculture. The nearest vocational-technical school is Eli Whitney in Hamden.

In years to come, more and more jobs will require specific technical skills, Pynn noted. City kids aren’t getting career-specific training for emerging industries like biotechnology.

Pynn now has a year to guide the program into existence. In doing so, he’ll expand the district’s offerings in a major new direction,” he said.

He said the school will continue to change the model of education from one-size-fits-all” to multiple pathways.”

One of Pynn’s tasks will be to look for a way to pay for these new pathways.

These programs tend to be expensive,” he acknowledged.

Partnerships with local businesses could bring in some revenue.

The school aims to start with 120 students in the 11th grade and add another 120 each year, according to Pynn. It will prepare students for jobs in biotechnology and allied health, culinary science and food science, advanced manufacturing.

In future years, more programs will be added, including an automotive shop, he said.

That’ll just be the beginning.”

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