Lieutenant Governor spoke at the opening of the Montachusett Vocational Partnership (MVP) Academy, announcing an investment of more than $8.5 million in the Career Connected Learning Grants program to expand career-technical opportunities for high school students.

The announcement came as Monty Tech Superintendent Tom Brown described the MVP Academy as a satellite campus created to relieve demand at Monty Tech and provide a template for municipal and state partnership in career-technical education. Brown said Monty Tech had faced "well over 800 applicants for approximately 350 available seats" in a freshman class before the satellite approach was adopted.

The grant funding is intended to expand hands-on learning and build connections between schools and local employers, state officials said. "We're investing over 8 and a half million dollars in our Career Connected Learning Grants program," the Lieutenant Governor said, adding the money will support expanded high-quality career pathways and partnerships with employers. The administration also highlighted a supplemental budget item of $100,000,000 for CTE capital grants and the BRIGHT Act, which officials said will support upgrades to public higher education facilities.

Monty Tech used a Lab Modernization Grant to convert a vacant warehouse roughly a mile from the main campus into the MVP Academy, Brown said. He said much of the renovation work was performed by Monty Tech students and instructors. Under the model in use at MVP Academy, students remain enrolled in their home sending districts (named in the remarks as Fitchburg, Gardner and Narragansett Regional); Brown said Chapter 70 state funding for those students stays with their home districts while Chapter 74 funds tied to vocational instruction are reimbursed to Monty Tech.

Officials described the MVP model as a rotating schedule: students follow an AB week so juniors attend workforce training at Monty Tech while seniors remain in their home districts for academics, then the groups swap the following week. State education officials said that approach preserves home-district enrollment while expanding vocational seats.

State and local officials also announced a skills capital grant of $500,000 earmarked for plumbing at the MVP Academy. The education secretary said that plumbing expansion will create training for 40 additional high school students across three sending communities and offer evening classes for about 20 adults. In August, officials said, the administration approved 49 CTE programs expected to serve an additional 2,300 students, and the capital grants plan is projected to add roughly 3,000 more seats over three years.

Josh Cutler, undersecretary for labor and workforce development, highlighted apprenticeship connections and said the administration recently reached its 10,000th registered apprentice under current initiatives, calling the milestone part of a broader push to link students with employers and paid work experience.

Monty Tech leaders and local superintendents were credited by state officials for negotiating the schedule and partnership that permitted the satellite campus model. Several state agencies, including the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and workforce offices, were cited as partners, and the Clean Energy Center was named in remarks as a community partner for evening workforce training in clean-energy trades.

Officials and educators said they expect the plumbing program to launch in about nine months and indicated the administration will continue to provide funding and technical assistance to scale similar regional partnerships. Tom Brown and state officials emphasized that the combination of capital grants, program approvals and district cooperation made the MVP Academy expansion possible.