By Talia Heisey
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FRAMINGHAM In January, Keefe Technical High School students selected their Career and Technical Education (CTE), after several months participating in the school’s Career Exploration program.
Despite having “a large group of freshmen this year,” Keefe Superintendent of School Jonathan Evans told the School Committee Monday night “the vast majority still were able to get into one of their top choices for a Career and Technical Education program.” Evans said some students are on “waiting lists.”
The most popular programs were “Automotive Technology, Carpentry, Cosmetology, Design and Visual Communication, Health Careers, and Information Technology,” said Evans. “All of which were full with waitlists.”
Design and Visual Communications, in particular, explained Evans “has 20 kids in it this year. That’s a larger number than we usually take, and still has a waiting list,” said Evans.
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To accommodate students who are on the waiting list, Evans said “over the next couple of weeks [the school’s] going to be looking carefully at our staffing to make sure we’ve left no stone unturned in terms of fitting as many students as possible into our programs.”
Keefe Technical High School, which has students from Framingham, Ashland, Natick, Holliston, & Hopkinton is “especially interested in seeing the impact of this year’s remote career exploratory program on its freshmen.
During Career Exploratory, freshmen select eight different CTE programs (out of the school’s 15 different programs) to experience and learn more about
each one, ultimately deciding on one of these eight CTE programs in January.
To Evans the difference of remote could mean a major difference in if students continue with their program in person this spring, he explained “we’re going to see if there’s any changes of decisions when students actually get to come into their program for the first time because to date
it’s something they’ve done on zoom meetings and screen. They’re now going to be using the tools, seeing the environment, and getting that experience. Hopefully it will be validating for our students but..[if there are] any students who wish to change we’ll be working with them as well.”
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Talia Heisey is a 2021 spring intern for SOURCE. Heisey is a current sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English. They has been a contributor to the Amherst Wire’s campus news section since 2019, focused on covering the impact of COVID upon the UMass community. They has previously participated in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Journalism bootcamp program.