TAUNTON — Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School has been awarded a significant grant from the Baker-Polito Administration as part of the administration’s ongoing Skills Capital Grant program, Superintendent Alexandre Magalhaes has announced. 

Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School was awarded $1 million dollars as part of the latest round of funding, which was announced at an event at Westfield Technical Academy on Tuesday, Sept. 27. The school takes in students from seven communities, including Middleboro.

The school will use Skills Capital funds, along with funds from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to construct a new school that will expand culinary arts instruction. More than 100 high school students and adult program students will be taught professional cooking techniques, bakery and pastry art fundamentals, food sanitation and safety, and hospitality skills. The school will host a school restaurant and hospitality functions for the local community.

"This grant will allow us to best prepare our students for their futures in the workplace by ensuring they receive hands-on training with industry-standard equipment," Magalhaes said. "We thank the Baker-Polito Administration for their continued support of career technical education and the emphasis they have always placed on helping us educate and train the next generation of skilled workers."

The Baker-Polito Administration awarded $24 million in Skills Capital Grants to 14 different high schools as part of the funding. Each school received awards between $1 million and $2.5 million, which will enable the schools to modernize labs and significantly expand student enrollment in programs that provide career education. 

The high schools receiving grants as part of this latest round of funding will make strategic investments over the next two years to grow their career education programs to provide more learning opportunities for both traditional high school students and adult learners, with several schools expanding their Career Technical Initiative (CTI) programs to offer more learning opportunities in the late-afternoon and evening. Over the next five years, these grant awards will directly impact approximately 10,000 students across 38 different programs. 

The funding for this round of grants was included in An Act Relative to Immediate Covid-19 Recovery Needs, passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, which included $100 million in state resources to provide capital improvement grants to vocational high schools and public schools operating career and technical education programs.

Since 2015, 491 Skills Capital Grants totaling more than $153 million have been awarded to different schools and educational institutions across the Commonwealth, with many organizations receiving multiple grants over the years.