In an otherwise quiet election year, central Vermont residents are poised to decide on one major issue this November: whether to approve a $149 million bond to construct a new technical education center.
The Central Vermont Career Center is currently housed at Spaulding High School in Barre. But administrators say that demand for the vocational programs, which range from automotive and plumbing to cosmetology and culinary arts, has long outstripped the available space at the high school.
For the 2025-26 school year, the career center received 414 applications for only 228 spots. The gap has only widened over the past five years, according to the career center’s data.
Since 2018, the Central Vermont Career Center District — composed of 18 towns in Washington County — has worked on a plan to construct a new career center building in Graniteville that would expand access to trade programs and graduate more students. If the bond is approved, students could start attending school there beginning in 2029.
Businesses and policymakers have long raised concerns about Vermont’s shortage of qualified tradespeople and the need for more young people in the workforce. The career center’s superintendent, Jody Emerson, hopes to turn that urgency into support for the bond vote. If the new center is approved, it is poised to become the state’s first vocation school that is not attached to an existing school building or campus.
“We have thrown money at folks to move to Vermont to build our tax base and to maybe bring in a younger generation,” she said, referring to the pre-pandemic remote worker relocation grant. “And this is actually a way that we could do it, by investing in Vermont and Vermonters.”
But the request for a new high school building may run up against the state’s cost-of-living crisis. Earlier this month, residents at a public forum raised concerns about their ability to afford the higher taxes tied to the bond.
“I support education in trades and tech. It’s just that that is a lot of money right now for all of us,” said local resident Sue Paxton. “When you can’t even go to the grocery store and spend less than 20 bucks for two items, three items, it’s not a good time.”
Here’s what to know about the tech center, the proposed construction and the cost.
How would the tech center work?
The career center offers 15 different programs that vary widely in skillset, but there are some aspects that all students have in common.
Right now, career center students split their time between the center and the academic education requirements at their current school, Emerson said. A typical day begins around 8 a.m. and goes until lunch, when students return to their home districts for afternoon classes.
That divide is one thing Emerson hopes to change with a new building.
“I have, every day, been advocating for students to stay and not have to transition,” she said. “I think what we’ve gotten from feedback from students is that the majority of them would prefer to stay and just get everything met here.”
The new building in Graniteville would be able to house full-day instruction and potentially fit 9th- and 10th-graders, she said. Right now, 10th-graders can sign up for an “exploratory” program that allows them to try different programs. A new building could allow the district to offer that to 9th-graders.
The district has considered expanding in its current home at Spaulding High School, but there were challenges with that option, according to the Frequently Asked Questions section of the career center’s website. The high school has too little parking and not enough room to accommodate larger lab spaces required for hands-on instruction.
Emerson said the standalone school building could also allow the district to offer more programs like Human Services, or early childhood instruction, natural resources, advanced manufacturing and diesel mechanics.
But there is a national shortage of skilled-trades instructors, and Emerson admitted it’s something the career center has faced before.
When a plumbing teacher resigned early in the school year a couple years ago, “we were unable to fill that opening even though we had a full class,” she said. The school was able to get one of the lab assistants an emergency license and contracted with a local plumbing company to send over a part-time instructor, who eventually joined the school permanently.
Emerson is not too concerned about finding instructors, even if they were to expand their program. The center has been able to train new instructors by having them work alongside seasoned ones, expanding their program in increments each year.
“We’ve also had lots of outreach from people who are excited about the new center and saying, ‘I’m interested in teaching there if you’re able to open this program,’” she said.
Sara Walker said she’s seen the benefits of the career center to students firsthand. As a former teacher at U32 High School and Spaulding High School, she said some of her students who struggled to pay attention or connect with class materials “thrived” once they joined the career center.
“They’re more engaged in their learning and finding more relevance in it,” she said.
But at a social level, going from one school district to another — even if it meant just walking across the building — could be disorienting for students, she said. “I had a problem with wanderers who would go over to the tech center, because that’s where they wanted to be,” she said.
What would the new tech center look like?
The proposed location of the new building is 16 Baptist St. in Graniteville, a 27-acre field with a paved road and municipal water and sewer connections, according to the center’s May 2025 presentation.
TruexCullins, in collaboration with Lavallee Brensinger, designed a mockup plan for the building that would run about 167,000 square feet. The plan incorporates plenty of lab space along with classrooms, offices, a cafeteria and a gym.
Most of the $149 million bond, roughly $125 million, would go toward construction costs, according to a budget breakdown Emerson provided via email. Another $10 million would be set aside for professional services.
Equipment and furnishings, including lab equipment, would run about $3 million. Emerson said the center plans to bring over any equipment it can from the Spaulding High School space.
“When we renovated the space where we have our welding program shop now, we made sure that everything we got for that space could be brought with us, and that the air system we bought for it could handle double” the capacity if it was moved to the new building, she said.
What will it cost taxpayers?
The district partnered with state analysts to figure out how the bond would impact annual property tax bills. Across all the municipalities that are part of the district, the annual impact on a $300,000 home ranged between $99 and $420.
But Emerson cautioned that the impacts are based on 2025-26 tax data, and that the actual annual cost would vary throughout the life of the bond and depend on upcoming state-level changes to the education system. Basically, “they’re 100% not accurate,” she said.
An expansion of the tech center would mean raising the center’s operating budget, too. The center’s budget was $5.1 million this fiscal year; the district projects it would need an additional $3 million to cover the expenses of the new building, according to the website FAQs. The center does receive state and federal assistance for its annual budget through technical education support grants.
Emerson pointed to research elsewhere in the country that found a positive rate of return on the money spent on technical education through better career outcomes for students later in life.
“If we invest in our students, we have a greater chance of them getting jobs here, staying here, helping to pay back this cost and growing everything here,” she said. “They’re going to be here with their families. They’re going to have kids that come to our education system. They’re going to keep Vermont growing.”
At the same time, she acknowledged that some central Vermont residents may not feel like they can afford to make that investment now, regardless of its future benefits.
“I think we’re going to learn something from the outcome of this vote. I’m not sure what it’s going to be yet,” she said.
Emily Wheeler Reynolds, a member of the Barre Unified Union School District board, said via email that she was frustrated with the “one-sided” nature of the discussion about cost. “It really speaks to a mindset of scarcity that is holding us back,” she said.
“The five interconnected factors of mobility that young people need in order to thrive are: a strong academic foundation, career-connected learning, opportunities to build social capital, support in their lives and civic engagement in their community,” she wrote. “The career center speaks to so many of those.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Emily Wheeler Reynolds’ name. An earlier version also misstated the name of the company that designed a mockup plan.
