Joe Langone (third from right), the principal of Westfield Technical Academy and guest speaker Monday at the weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of Westfield,poses with some of the club’s former presidents – from left, Kate Phelon, Rick Teodore, Jennifer Gruszka, Rene Laviolette, Lynn Boscher and Eric Forish. (Photo courtesy the Rotary Club of Westfield)
WESTFIELD– Joe Langone, the principal of Westfield Technical Academy, told the members of the Rotary Club of Westfield that the educational paradigm has changed and explained how his school is meeting the challenges which come with that change.
On Monday, Langone was the guest speaker at the club’s regular weekly meeting at the Genesis Spiritual Life Center when he discussed changes both at his school and across the nation.
Last July Langone was appointed principal of the school which started as Westfield Trade School in 1911 and morphed into Westfield Vocational High School and Westfield Vocational-Technical High School before becoming Westfield Technical Academy at the start of the 2015 academic years, his first year as principal in Westfield.
Langone told the Rotarians that the days when vocational schools were the school of last resort are gone and that nowadays employers are eager to hire graduates with technical skills. He said that there is a “skills gap” both across the nation and in the local area which has created a severe shortage of workers with technical skills – the very skills that students learn at The Westfield Technical Academy and similar schools.
Langone said that while previously school systems had strived to produce “college ready”graduates the paradigm has shifted and graduates now should be “career and college ready” when they leave high school.
He said that programs at the academy deliver graduates ready to start highly technical (and very lucrative) careers without having to move out of the area, pointing especially to the school’s new aviation technology program.
He said that local employers are eager to hire academy graduates and “are clamoring for more.”
As a result, Langone said, competition for admission to technical schools now is fierce. He said that 150 freshmen have been selected for the next academic year but there are about 70 students on a waiting list for any slots which may become available. Such numbers are typical, he said.
And once admitted, Langone said, the instructional program is necessarily rigorous since students at the academy spend half their educational time in technical shops and thus have to master the same academic instruction as their colleagues at Westfield High School in only half the time.
The Rotary Club of Westfield meets at noon on Mondays in the Carriage House at Genesis Spiritual Life Center on Mill Street. Visitors and prospective members are always welcome.
At the club’s March 6 meeting, the guest speaker will be Todd Crevier, the founder of New England Adventures. Crevier’s project is a New England based non profit organization that connects Veterans with the wonder of New England’s wild outdoors.
On March 13, the Rotary’s guest will be Heather White, an associate area director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
