An industry-grade kitchen, where students could be seen working and preparing meals, served as the backdrop for the Concord School District’s annual update to local business leaders and government officials.
At the “State of the Schools” event inside Concord Regional Technical Center’s Gratitude Cafe, district leaders underscored their investments in career-based learning, and the evidence was served for lunch.
Superintendent Tim Herbert said the district’s vision is to continue to expand education beyond classroom walls and into industry fields, with welding equipment, full-scale garages for vehicle repair and medical exam beds on display.
“Education’s transforming,” Herbert said.
While Concord is expanding its alternative and technical education course offerings, officials worry about what new tax caps in surrounding towns will mean for access to those programs.
Crimson Point and career-based learning
As part of a sustainability design project this year, students in the new alternative high school classes created small models of a more sustainable statehouse and a Concord High with green spaces added to its roof. Now, students are working on a project using geometry to build houses and wire them with electricity, Krystin Cooney said.
After tough cuts in the district’s last budgeting session, administrators decided to rely less on Second Start, a local alternative high school that served about 30 students, by creating an in-house program inside the high school. It’s a move that saved the district $836,000 this year, Herbert said.
Crimson Point, the new program, currently serves 20 students — 10 in the morning and 10 in the afternoon. It has one humanities and one STEM teacher, each with their own classroom.
Herbert worked with Cooney, who now leads the program, to create Crimson Point. He said the program allows students who need a more flexible schedule and work-based opportunities to remain integrated into the high school’s social and educational network.
“[We’re] bringing students who are Concord students back into the Concord School District to get the learning experience that we are trying to give all of the Concord community,” Herbert said.
Inside CRTC classrooms, teachers from criminal justice to graphic design shared how their own industry experience helps prepare students for professional careers. Students in the graphic design program have been working with the Chamber of Commerce on a logo for its new education and business collaborative.
Herbert said the district is looking at what tech offerings it can bring deeper into Concord High School and ways to connect those in the the Adult Diploma Program to take part in CRTC’s programs after hours.
“We’re looking for workforce preparedness, looking to capitalize on what’s needed here in the state of New Hampshire and offering training in that. So when people come to us, there’s value to their education,” Herbert said. “They’re walking out of here with more than just credit on a transcript. They’re walking out with skills that are in demand.”
As it plans for the new middle school, the district is also taking into consideration career-centered in its design of common spaces, an auditorium and a gymnasium. Herbert said these spaces will allow the school to bring in guest speakers from the community.
“We see the investment in this middle school beyond just education and the learning experience of our students, but also a community asset that can be utilized by the greater Concord community,” Herbert said.
Financial barriers
At the same time, factors beyond the district’s control may limit some opportunities.
In the 2024 to 2025 school year, the state covered about 38% of total CRTC tuition, leaving 62% of the cost to local districts. Legally, towns are only supposed to be left with 25% of the cost for out-of-district Career and Technical Education, per state law.
Sending schools’ tuition obligations are not exempt from the capped budget, and many of the sending schools adopted tax caps, noted Business Administrator Jack Dunn.
Some sending towns have already had to lower the number of students they can afford to send to CRTC. Tax caps present a further constraint on their resources.
“As these various towns look at their increasing health insurance, their increasing salaries, their transportation costs and being able to send their students, what’s the balance?” Dunn said.
About a dozen sending towns or school districts passed the local spending cap, including Merrimack Valley and Pembroke
While public school funding has been a continually divisive policy issue across New Hampshire, career and technical education has won across-the-spectrum praise. That’s one reason why, Dunn said, district leaders held this event inside CRTC.
“You are here in a CTE,” he said. “It is something that’s being advocated by a lot of public officials on both sides of the aisle, but it is not being funded to stay up.”