Region 10 Technical High School in Brunswick was recently awarded a $1,080,000 grant from the MELMAC Education Foundation in Augusta.
On Oct. 27, community members, business partners, students and staff gathered to celebrate the receipt of the grant. Wendy Ault, executive director of MELMAC Education Foundation, along with Janelle MacDermott, board member and treasurer for MELMAC, presented an oversized check to Shawn M. Chabot, superintendent/director at Region 10; Doug Dumont, Region 10 program director; and Gretchen McCloy, the ASPIRE ELO (extended learning opportunity) coordinator. The check represents an overall investment of $1,080,000 from MELMAC, which will be used at Region 10 over five years to “Cultivate Maine’s Future Workforce Together.”
The “Together” is a key component of the ASPIRE program. Instructors and administrators at Region 10 will be working closely with business and community partners to create opportunities for students to engage with meaningful work related experiences in the real world. Students will be provided opportunities to learn and practice their soft skills in addition to the technical skills they are learning in the classrooms and workshops at Region 10. These experiences could range from a one-hour informational interview with a local employer, to working with a mentor from the community on a short-term project as part of an ELO, to the semester- or yearlong opportunities through CO-OP and pre-apprenticeships.
Jason Darling, COOP and pre-apprenticeship instructor at Region 10, has a longstanding tradition of getting students out for school-to-work experiences while they are enrolled at Region 10. He is excited about the future of the ASPIRE grant to invite more students at Region 10 to be able to access these career exploration opportunities.
“Offering ELOs to our students will allow us to expose them to more career options and give them a head start on the career pathway planning that we focus on in our school,” Darling said in a prepared release. “It’s an awesome opportunity for them to be able to get a real world look at a potential career and how the skills they are learning translate to the workplace.”
Local employers are encouraged to reach out to McCloy to discuss partnerships and workforce pipelines. McCloy can be reached at [email protected] or 207-729-6622. McCloy is also curating a “job board” for current Region 10 students and for recent graduates who are looking for employment, and welcomes job postings from local employers.
The ASPIRE Region 10 Tech program also will allow for greater outreach to pre-K through grade 8 learners in Regional School Unit 5, Maine School Administrative District 75 and Brunswick communities. Region 10 staff will be working closely with the sending schools to find ways to introduce younger students to technical education. Region 10 instructors are currently working with McCloy to create hands-on activities that could be shared with younger learners.
“This grant allows us to step fully into our identity as a modern career and technical education school — reinforcing a culture grounded in innovation, professionalism and real opportunity for every student who walks through our doors,” said Region 10 Assistant Director Doug Dumont. “At Region 10, we see a real responsibility — and a huge opportunity — to step up. We’re here to bridge that ‘opportunity gap’ for our students and our community. We are deeply committed to supporting our students right here in Brunswick, as well as across the communities of MSAD 75 and RSU 5. We want to make sure they’re connected with real-world professional networks, great mentors, and clear pathways to high-paying careers right here in Maine.”
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