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What to know about the new lottery to get into Mass. vocational high schools
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Volunteers will help plant more than 37,000 American flags on Boston Common today for the annual Memorial Day Flag Garden. Each small flag represents a Massachusetts service member who died defending the country since the Revolutionary War. A name-reading ceremony is scheduled for tomorrow at the State House.
Now, to the news:
Voke-y dokey: Massachusetts is moving to change the way admission works for the state's 29 regional trade schools. The state's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted yesterday to ban the use of grades, interviews and recommendations when selecting which high schoolers get into the vocational schools. Instead, the state will use a weighted lottery system proposed by Gov. Maura Healey's administration.
- Why? Voc-tech schools — which train students for trade careers, from car repair to nursing to hospitality management — are in high demand these days. According to The Boston Globe, more than 8,500 of the roughly 20,300 middle-schoolers who applied to the state's trade high schools last spring were denied. And advocates have argued for years that the current admissions system, which primarily relies on grades, attendance and subjective measures like interviews, favors high-performing students over those from low-income or marginalized backgrounds.
- How the new system would work: The admissions system approved yesterday puts all students who apply into a lottery. Schools then have the option to use the simple non-weighted lottery. Or they could give extra weights to students who have no major disciplinary infractions and fewer than 27 unexcused absences over the past 270 school days. Those weights make students with a clean record two-to-three times more likely to be admitted than students with no extra weight. It's also meant to address vocational school leaders' concerns about ensuring students are motivated and ready for the nontraditional classroom environment.
- What's next: The new system is slated to start with the 2026-2027 school year — but there is one potential looming twist. After being lobbied by vocational school administrators, the state's House of Representatives added language to its budget proposal to, at least temporarily, block the new system. The Senate, however, has not followed suit, so we'll have to see how the budget debate plays out.
Shots, shot, shots (not everybody?): Some Massachusetts doctors are raising concerns about the new federal changes to the COVID-19 vaccine policy. In a major shift yesterday, the FDA announced it will require vaccine manufacturers to conduct big additional studies on the costs and benefits of the vaccines for children and younger healthy adults, while continuing the current recommendations for people who are over the age of 65 or younger with health risks. In effect, the changes may mean annual fall COVID boosters are no longer automatically recommended (or perhaps even available) for everyone over the age of 6 months. " I'm very concerned that the effect of the recommendations will basically limit availability of the vaccine to people who would like to get it," Hugh Taylor, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, told WBUR's John Bender.
- What we don't know: Taylor says the degree to which vaccines are limited for healthy younger people remains unclear. The change could lead to insurers no longer covering the vaccine for lower-risk individuals, making the shots unaffordable. Or, he said, the new approach could effectively restrict pharmacists and doctors from providing it to those groups. "That's to be decided," he said.
- Zoom out: Officials estimate up to 200 million people would remain eligible under the new approach, which aligns with vaccine guidelines in countries like the U.K. and Canada. You can read the list of qualifying health conditions here.
- Go deeper: NPR has more here on the change and what it could mean.
Heads up: The MBTA is warning about a few big partial subway line closures next month, due to signal upgrades and other regular maintenance work. Read all the details about shuttle buses and the other ways to get around the closures on the T's website. But for now, here's a quick look at the schedule:
- June 5-8: The Green Line's core tunnel between North Station and Kenmore Square — plus basically all of the E branch and some of the B branch — will be closed starting around 8 p.m. June 4.
- June 7-15: The Blue Line will be suspended between Bowdoin and Orient Heights for nine full days.
- June 21-29: Orange Line service will be suspended between Back Bay and Forest Hills. The closure will also extend to North Station during the two weekends bookending the nine-day period.
P.S.— Hanging around Boston this Memorial Day weekend? Here are five things to do from our arts team, from a citywide public art celebration to "Drunk Black History" to an Irish dance party. (And that's not even counting Boston Calling.)
