Regional Vocational-Technical School System
Keypoints - Briefing

Regional Vocational-Technical School System: Briefing Keypoints

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• The Connecticut Regional Vocational-Technical (v-t) School System is a state-run network of schools providing academic instruction and trade experience. It currently offers 38 programs -- three-quarters on the secondary level and the rest for adults only.
  
• In FY 99, the system expended $89.5 million, with most of the money from the state General Fund -- individual schools expended between $3.5 million and $6.5 million.
  
• For the 1998-99 school year (SY), approximately 7,000 adults and 10,210 secondary students attended vocational-technical schools.
  
• Secondary students applying to a vocational-technical school must submit grade, attendance, and testing information and be interviewed by school staff -- acceptance rates for the current school year at individual schools ranged from 54% to 93%.
  
• During SY 1997-98, secondary-level capacity systemwide was 11,700 students; individual v-t schools ranged from 422 to 836 students -- the portion of capacity used was 86% systemwide, with a range of 66% to 110% at individual schools.
  
• One-third of the secondary-level enrollees systemwide during SY 1998-99 were female, 38% were minorities, and 16% had disabilities requiring special education.
  
• Systemwide, fewer than 15% of v-t school students who took the Connecticut Academic Performance Test in the spring of 1998 scored at or above goal on any portion of it.
  
• The State Board of Education is statutorily required to evaluate all v-t school programs at least every five years. Programs have been reauthorized, but the v-t school system has no formal process for assessing performance in terms of criteria specified in statute. In addition, related programs are not reviewed in the same cycles, even though the board is supposed to consider whether certain combinations of offerings should be required.
  
• The state board is also statutorily required to provide a process for the public to request consideration of new trade programs. The v-t school system currently has no such formal process.
  
• The number of students graduating in June 1998 represented only 61% of the number who entered the system in September 1993 as the class of 1998.
  
• Although 56% of the class of 1998 was employed after graduation, only one-third of the graduates were employed full time in a job related to the trade they had trained for; nearly one-third of the graduates were pursuing additional education.

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