Amendment #202 to H4789

Expanding Access to Vocational Technical Education

Mr. Moran of Lawrence moves to amend the bill by adding the following:

For a competitive grant program to be administered by the executive office of education, in consultation with the executive office of economic development and the executive office of labor and workforce development, to provide funding to expand high quality Chapter 74 career technical education and training programs in high-demand, high-wage fields that are aligned to the commonwealth’s Regional Labor Market Blueprints; provided, that vocational technical schools, agricultural high schools, and comprehensive high schools offering no less than five Chapter 74 programs shall be eligible for funds from this program; provided further, that eligible recipients shall be located in regions of the commonwealth with wait lists for enrollment in Chapter 74 programs; provided further, that funds may support the duplication by a comprehensive high school of existing Chapter 74 programs within a regional vocational-technical school district so long as there is demonstrated student and labor market demand for said program and the regional vocational-technical school district is unable to meet said demand; provided further, that preference in awarding grants shall be given to: (i) schools serving Gateway Cities, (ii) schools with existing Chapter 74 programs in high-demand, high-wage fields that have an excess of applications over seats, (iii) schools with demonstrated strong connections to regional employers, and (iv) schools which have received Chapter 74 program approval by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and have a demonstrated ability to promptly expand capacity to implement said program; provided further, that no individual grant award shall exceed $25,000,000; provided further that initial term of said grant program shall be three years; provided further that not less than $100,000,000 shall be awarded per year during the initial term; and provided further, that the executive office of education, in consultation with the executive office of economic development and the executive office of labor and workforce development, shall adopt additional guidelines as necessary for the administration of the program………………..$300,000,000.

Additional co-sponsor(s) added to Amendment #202 to H4789

Expanding Access to Vocational Technical Education