Westfield Vocational-Technical High School Manufacturing Technology Instructor Clement Fucci, speaks to a group of students in the schools state-of-the-art computer aided manufacturing design lab. (File photo by chief photographer Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – Westfield Vocational-Technical High School will offer a second year of manufacturing night school on Wednesday, January 22.
Funded through Hampden County’s Regional Employment Board, the 300-hour program is designed to train students in precision manufacturing.
The night school program will run from 3:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ advanced manufacturing initiative, the course will be offered for free to all of it’s attendees
“The program’s students are mostly unemployed and underemployed in the area, as well as veterans,” said Clement Fucci, the head of Westfield Voc-Tech’s manufacturing department. “Students will be learning about the basics of precision manufacturing, blueprint reading, computer numerically controlled, or CNC, programming, and technical mathematics.”
Fucci said that potential students will take an aptitude test to see if they have the correct skill set for the industry, namely adequate reading, writing, and mechanical skills.
Fucci added that, at the end of the 300-hour course, the Regional Employment Board will work with the course’s graduates to assist in finding jobs.
Voc-Tech Principal Stefan Czaporowski believes the total number of students will match last year’s inaugural class.
“We had around 12 last year, but we’re hoping for a little more (this year),” he said. “The students have to meet the standards. We need to make sure they’re dedicated.”
Czaporowski added that this year’s course will be different due to it’s scheduling, as last year’s program began in October 2012, and ended in May, while this year will kick off next week and end in June, with students working through the high school’s spring break.
Czaporowski believes the majority of the students will likely be city residents in their early to mid-20s who are working with the Regional Employment Board, and he anticipates several military veterans to join the program, as well.
“Our own teachers will be teaching the program,” said Czaporowski. “It’s an effort to fill the manufacturing pipeline with Voc-Tech students, both day and night.”
