STEFAN CZAPOROWSKI
WESTFIELD – This year, Westfield Vocational Technical High School had graduating class’ loss of 46 students, graduating 89 students from its original 135 students from the freshman class of 2009, as the City Council seeks to trim over half a million dollars from the Westfield Public School system budget and every line item is being scrutinized.
According to WVTHS principal Stefan Czaporowski, any criticism of those numbers is unfounded, as a wide array of reasons contributed to these losses.
“Show me a fourteen or fifteen year old kid who knows exactly what they want to do with their life,” said Czaporowski, a Florence native who is in his first year at the WVTHS helm. “Some students finish their ninth grade year and realize they don’t want to do this with their life, and they transfer to the high school.”
While an outside observer might call a loss of 46 students from a graduating class a high dropout rate, Czaporowski says that isn’t as substantial a portion of the student body as one would think.
“We lose some students to dropouts, yes, but we work tirelessly with them to think about their options and to eventually get their GED diplomas,” he said.
He attributes a large portion of the students leaving the WVTHS classrooms to out-of-district students choosing to leave voluntarily or being forced out by their home districts themselves.
“We had about 66 students from outside the Westfield School District last year,” Czaporowski said. “And those districts pay for those kids to come here. So if a student fails even one class, that student’s home district will pull him out of our school and put them back into their own.”
Czaporowski says that districts such as Agawam, Gateway Regional and Southwick-Tolland-Granville send students to WVTHS, and smaller populations from Longmeadow and West Springfield are beginning to venture west on Route 20, a testament to the changing public perception of Vocational Technical education.
“It’s no longer a popularly held notion that these schools are just for the kids who work on cars,” said Czaporowski. “People are realizing that, if you enter into our manufacturing program here, there is a job available when you graduate. Research has shown that skill trade positions are the hardest to fill right now, so manufacturing, information technology and allied health workers are in high demand.”
When asked about programs that have a smaller enrollment and graduated under five students, Czaporowski retains optimism and dismisses public skepticism.
“It’s an exploratory process,” he said, “A student may enter into a program, but realize it is harder or different than they thought. While an IT guy who works on computers makes good money, working with computers isn’t for everyone.”
Czaporowski is confident that the school’s current student body of around 470 kids will continue to leave it’s halls and lead meaningful lives of consequence.
“Our kids are in shop, as well as taking regular classroom coursework,” he said, adding that the school is adding honors courses this year. “So our kids have to work that much harder. And because of that, I believe we are headed in the right direction.”
