Waltham’s new high school brings career training to life

It doesn’t feel like a high school.

Walking through the kitchen, the salon, the auto body shop, the carpentry shop — all of it looks, feels and even smells professional.

Which is exactly the point, said Waltham High School Principal Darrell Braggs.

“You forget you’re in high school,” he said. “You don’t feel like you’re in a school that has a space trying to learn [a trade]. You feel like you’re actually in that space. You’re temporarily out of the high school, and you’re in the field.”

The school, which cost $374 million and opened to students last September, is home to 14 vocational programs, also known as Career and Technical Education programs. 

Mike Grace, director of CTE at Waltham High School, said the school was built with the CTE programs in mind.

“The new building allowed us to increase our programs from 10 to 14,” he said. “And with the new, larger spaces we were able to update our equipment to match what students will be working on in the industry.”

Students explore all the programs as freshmen, and then are able to pick one to continue pursuing as sophomores and beyond. Some 608 students — 34% of the school’s population — are enrolled in a CTE program, Grace said.

Offerings include culinary arts, cosmetology, automotive technology, early education and care, health assisting, TV broadcasting, carpentry, electrical, HVACR and environmental science.

A few of the programs will offer their services to the public: culinary arts, cosmetology, automotive technology, and early education and care. The school hopes to have a restaurant and salon open as soon as the fall 2025 semester, while the opening date of the child care center has not been determined.

Open for business

Meanwhile, the automotive technology shop is already open to Waltham residents and school district employees.

“Auto tech was already public facing [at the old high school], so they hit the ground running on day one,” Braggs said. “In fact, in the first week of school, my car was down there on the lift, and they were taking care of it.”

The shop provides only minor work, such as brake repairs, oil changes, cosmetic fixes and routine maintenance. 

‘A dream kitchen’

Jean Hunt, a CTE culinary arts teacher, has benefited greatly from the new spaces, especially the updated kitchen.

“In the old building everything was harder and took longer,” she said. “And I had to explain [to the students] what they were missing. But now we’re able to use all these amazing pieces of kitchen equipment, really state-of-the-art stuff.”

Hunt, a former chef who has been teaching in Waltham for 20 years, said the new space is “a dream kitchen.”

“I tease the kids that they’re never gonna work in a kitchen that’s as pristine as this, especially year one, unless you’re walking into a brand new hotel or kitchen,” she said. “We’ve really got all the bells and whistles.”

The kitchen connects directly to the restaurant, which is not fully furnished. It still lacks point-of-service machines where customers would order and pay.

The school is still working out the schedule for the restaurant, Hunt said, but it will most likely only serve lunch, since she has her advanced classes around that time. Only those classes will be allowed to work at the restaurant.

“Some of my classes are just freshmen who don’t even know how to properly hold a knife yet,” Hunt said, “so they obviously can’t be cheffing it up at a restaurant.”

The goal is to have the restaurant open for business sometime early next school year, once the restaurant is complete and more of the students have been trained to work in it. 

Salon services

The school has added a cosmetology program that will include a salon where members of the Waltham community can make appointments.

The salon will only offer non-chemical services in the beginning, said Yolanda Crowell, a Waltham High cosmetology teacher, because of restrictions from the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Cosmetology and Barbering. In order to provide chemical services, students are required to have 500 hours of experience, Crowell said.

“Because we’re new, our students currently in the program only have gained one year of experience,” she said. “Next year, once they start gaining those hours, they’ll be able to start using chemicals, and we hope to introduce those services by 2026 or 2027.”

The non-chemical services the salon will provide include blow dries, smoothing and other hair treatments, manicures, facials and waxing, Crowell said.

She hopes to have the salon open by the end of the fall 2025 semester. 

Crowell — who for 10 years was the director of G2O Spa and Salon, a high-end salon in Boston — added that students who complete the program will leave with more than just some new skills.

“It’s a big accomplishment, because once they complete the three years in the program, they will have the hours to gain a cosmetology license,” she said. “They can take a state board exam, and once they pass that, they’re able to work out in the field in any cosmetology career.”

Asset for the city

Braggs said that the career-readiness aspect of the CTE program is one of its greatest strengths.

“A lot of people don’t realize that when our students are done here, they’re ready to go,” he said. “They are industry-ready from day one after graduation.”

Braggs added that the school is taking the utmost precautions when it comes to the public-facing programs and student safety.

“We’re making sure that the right people are coming in, but it’s very compartmentalized,” he said. “You have to ring a bell to go into these places, and when you come in, you don’t have access to the school. It takes like nine steps to get into the main building.”

He said the new building — and its programs — are good for Waltham, because they inspire students to want to stay in public schools.

“Students who may have chosen to go private or may have chosen to go to [another vocational school] are choosing to come here instead, and I think that’s exciting for the community,” he said. “People who live in Waltham are coming to Waltham public schools and not going elsewhere.”

This story is part of a partnership between The Waltham Times and the Boston University Department of Journalism.