Twenty-three-year-old Jackson (“Jackie”) Pizzano spends most of his days up in a tree, a hundred feet above the ground, often secured to a Tabor Tree bucket truck as he uses a chainsaw to prune, remove dangerous branches from, and propagate the health of the Island’s woods. For the past couple of years, he’s worked as a licensed arborist on the Island, but his roots in the outdoor industry started when he was a student in the high school’s horticulture program.
Pizzano is one of many Island students who have returned to work in the local trades after higher education, and his attendance in one of the career technical education (CTE) programs introduced him to the industry. Horticulture is one of several of these programs offered at the high school, which also include automotive technology, building trades, culinary arts, early childhood development, and health assisting.
About a quarter of high schools in the state offer these career programs, including Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS). And there’s a push both from the state and local officials to support them further. Not only were the programs recently awarded funds from the state governor’s administration for expansion, but the school building project, which awaits an Island-wide vote early next month, includes plans to bolster what is a career push for many students.
“I knew I hated being inside, and that’s why I chose horticulture,” Pizzano said. “I wasn’t going to work in an office.”
Pizzano is a prime example of the success of a learning cycle that’s beneficial to both the Island economy and the students themselves. Islanders who return home after further education or extended travel often find stable work in the trades. Many got their start through a CTE program.
Affordability continues to be a top issue for Island residents, and no one seems to be immune. And with a salary of $300,000 a year needed to purchase a home on Martha’s Vineyard, according to new data from a UMASS Donahue study, certain jobs make more financial sense than others.
The pay in the trades — which for landscaping positions starts at around $30 per hour, double the minimum wage in Massachusetts — is a good start for some young Islanders. And running a business in those fields is a way many of them thrive, and can even purchase homes here.
Trades are huge on the Island. When Pizzano pulls up to job sites, he said, it’s like a high school reunion. “I know my buddy is doing the electric inside. I go talk to him. I go talk to the carpenter, because the roofer [is someone] I went to high school or middle school with.”
He added, “We’re doing different parts of trades, and we’re all kind of doing the same mission. You feel like you’re in a community, because it’s not like off-Island where there’s these huge corporations.” Here, he said, “it’s all just little mom-and-pops,” where everyone works for the same cause.
These programs provide economic benefit to municipalities too, which is why Gov. Maura Healey announced a $2 million grant for MVRHS CTE programs late last month.
“Across Massachusetts, we’re hearing from students and families who want access to career technical education,” Healey stated in a press release April 30. “This investment will expand capacity, create new opportunities, and ensure more students can gain the skills they need to succeed, while strengthening our workforce and supporting employers across the state.”
And that money is needed.
Facilities for the CTE programs at MVRHS are hardly up to standards. According to past reporting, the horticulture classroom is infested with mold, and the building trades shop has faulty windows. The lack of central air in automotive technology creates challenges, and the culinary arts kitchen has outdated equipment and ceiling leaks.
Horticulture instructor Kyle Crossland said that thanks to a state grant back in 2018, his program got a new greenhouse. But still, the classroom, he said, “is basically a warehouse with one wall that has plugs.”
All CTE classroom sizes are far too small, according to the requirements set by the Department of Secondary Education (DESE). In order to meet state standards, nearly 10,000 square feet — or the equivalent of 27.8 football fields — of additional space is needed for CTE programs alone, according to Sam Hart, the MVRHS director of operations.
The proposed layout for the new school would add an additional 34,000 square feet. Hart said “about two-thirds” of that would be “taken up by special education and CTE.”
“Those programs are what’s driving almost all of that extra 34,000 square feet,” he added.
The entire project is nearly 200,000 square feet of additions, as well as renovations of existing structures. It would cost around $333.5 million. A $71 million reimbursement from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) shaves off some of that total, but taxpayers in all six Island towns will ultimately be responsible for an estimated $258 million, plus an additional $180 million in interest, to be nearly equally distributed over the next 30 years.
There’s an Island-wide vote on June 2 to determine whether or not the project goes ahead, and it very much depends on Island property owners accepting an increase in their taxes.
If the project is voted down in June, many of the additions and renovations for the 1959 school may have to wait another decade to come before Islanders again. And if needed repairs proceed without state approval from the MSBA, which took nine years to secure, the central air systems, mold, and other school deficiencies still need to be fixed. The upgrades would cost, without the entire high school building project that’s on the table now, an estimated $201 million to $238 million, according to a recent school committee report. Plus, the MSBA reimbursement would be lost if the project is voted down.
But the recent $2 million state grant for CTE remains, no matter the vote.
“We wrote it to support the high school building project, so it’s new equipment for the space as well as the design and some of the construction costs,” the CTE department chair and culinary arts teacher, Jack O’Malley, told The Times.
“This building has been here for a very long time, so it’s not in the best shape,” Crossland added.
Pizzano remembers the space well. He said “half the battle” of the day-to-day work in the program was “digging through 50 years” of the program’s history to find just one working tool.
It was true in 2016, when Pizzano started his education in horticulture, and remains true today. In 2016, the conditions were nearly identical to those this year, and were highlighted in a public tour. A decade ago, they wanted to fix the deficiencies, but that would have cost millions of dollars, a far cry from the $175,000 allotted in the budget for repairs then.
“Our ambition is great, but our facilities are poor,” former MVRHS Principal Peg Regan said to The Times that year.
The solution was a school renovation, which school officials then had just started to plan, and which is now a possible reality. Now the MSBA funding is secured, and the proposal is nearly in front of voters.
School building committee members, along with Tappé Architects, the group that created plans for the project, recently published a report titled “What Happens if the Ad/Reno Does Not Proceed?”
The first sentence sums up its findings: “If the Island votes ‘No,’ the project is dead.”
If the project is voted down by voters, the reimbursement grant from MSBA will be lost. While there’s a small window of opportunity to hold a second vote, where the project could pass, “the most common outcome of a failed vote is that the project is removed from the MSBA pipeline, their funding is gone, and the project is dead.”
The school committee is anxious to get the project through, partly because the state of disrepair as well as health risks and dangers posed to students and teachers need immediate action.
“The district believes the building deficiencies identified must be addressed,” the report stated.
The size of other classrooms in the high school building, like those for English and history, is also far below the DESE requirement, which is 825 square feet. Hart said the average size of a room in the school is 715 square feet.
At a recent plant sale for Mother’s Day, the culmination of the horticulture students’ work throughout the year, Pizzano looked back on the education he received. He said teachers like Crossland and the former CTE program director, Dr. Barbara-Jean Chauvin, who left the position in 2021, were integral to his current career path.
“I tell everybody to go into them, because they’re an awesome stepping stone to any of the trades,” Pizzano said.
Pizzano was urged to attend college for a degree in arboriculture and forest management, and with Chauvin’s encouragement, he received a scholarship through MVYouth that allowed him to attend two years at UMass Stockbridge for free. Then he brought that knowledge back to the Island.
“I’m starting to see more and more students who I’ve had [in school] start to enter horticulture-related fields, like arboriculture, like Jackie does, and there’s such a demand for it,” Crossland said.
CTE program offerings at MVRHS:
Other CTE programs in the school see a similar economic payout for both students and the Island economy.
Automotive technology
- Instructor: Ken Ward
- Certifications students receive: OSHA 10-Hour General Industry
- Class content: Technical repairs; tire, wheel, and brake service; engine diagnosis and repair; fuel injection systems; transmissions; electronics
Building trades
- Instructor: William Seabourne
- Certifications students receive: OSHA 10-hour Construction/General Industry, and First Aid/CPR/AED
- Class content: Safe use of hand and power tools, drawings and blueprints, installations, subflooring, roofing, siding
Culinary arts
- Instructor: Chef Jack O’Malley and Chef Kevin Crowell
- Certifications students receive: ServeSafe, First Aid/CPR/AED, OSHA 10-Hour General Industry
- Class content: Cooking, food service, waitstaff training, effective communication at work
Early childhood development
- Instructor: Leslie Frizzell
- Certifications students receive: OSHA 10-hour Health Assisting, American Red Cross CPR, MA State EEC license
- Class content: Education and care of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and early elementary students; nutrition; health and safety; social and emotional growth
Horticulture–landscape maintenance
- Instructor: Kyle Crossland
- Certifications students receive: OSHA 10-Hour General Industry and Massachusetts Pesticide Application
- Class content: Propagation, pest management, plant and soil science, landscape and hardscape design
Health assisting
- Instructor: Melinda McCarron
- Certifications students receive: OSHA 10-hour Health Assisting, American Red Cross PLS CPR, Certified Nurse Aide, Home Health Aide, Alzheimer’s and Dementia Sensitivity Training, Mental Health Support Aide
- Class content: Anatomy, physiology, growth and development, medical terminology, aging and Alzheimer’s care, infectious diseases, mental health, nutrition