With One-Week Deadline Looming, Supporters Call for Action to Save High School Auto Collision Program

Concerned community members are rallying to try and ensure the Shawsheen Valley Technical High School Auto Collision Repair and Refinishing program has a future at the school in Billerica, Massachusetts.

The school is currently in the planning stages for a new building. Rachel James, former body technician and CEO of Torque Financial Group, posted on Facebook following a ShawTech Advisory Board meeting on October 16 for students, parents, and community members to contact the school committee before an upcoming vote on October 28 to “save the program” due to declining enrollment.

“A lot of us from industry were there and shocked there was low enrollment. We didn’t know,” James said. “I think a lot of us would’ve gotten involved sooner if we’d known of the low enrollment or that it was on the chopping block.”

Patrick Tully, owner of Factory Collision Center in Middleton, is on the advisory board of ShawTech. He’s employed several students from collision repair programs in the area and said the ShawTech students have demonstrated impressive skills and work ethic.

“I was kind of blindsided when I walked in to have the administration say there’s no body shop program [in the plans] and if you want, you can go appeal to the committee to have a body shop program,” he said. “We’re all getting together to try and figure out [how to save it]… We need younger kids [in collision repair]. We need kids who want to work. The kids I particularly got out of Shawsheen are the best and hardest working.”

Superintendent Tony McIntosh said the school is in the first phase of planning for a school building project. No decisions have been made at this time.

“As part of our review, we have identified the Auto Collison program as having historically low student enrollment,” he said. “The meeting on October 28 is to review the document that has been created as part of this review process. This document was just reviewed by our curriculum subcommittee on October 7 and needs to be reviewed and approved by the full school committee before any information will be finalized.”

He added, “Massachusetts has very specific guidelines about what must be done IF the school committee decides to eliminate the program, and this includes developing and sharing a closure plan and communicating this information with all the students in the program, and their parents/guardians. Any student currently enrolled in the program has the right to complete their studies. At this time, the discussion is focused on what programs we would offer if a school building project moves forward.”

As a follow-up question, we asked McIntosh to clarify what programs are under review in the current document and what the process is for approving or amending it, but he did not respond by press time late Friday.

CJ Timmons of DB National Warehouse Supply has helped supply the program with products and ideas for the past eight years. He said the program has an issue with keeping freshmen students in the program when they become sophomores. He also noted the collision repair industry has an optics issue with outdated stereotypes. Timmons said parents have a negative view of the industry and are persuading kids not to pursue it as a career.

“Parents have a negative look at collision, unfortunately. It used to be a dirty industry. It’s cleaned up. It’s excellent; it can pay well. There’s plenty of opportunity everywhere,” he said. “They’re trying to figure out how to continue this program with low enrollment numbers. What we need to do as a community is get the attention of the parents first.”

Northeast Metropolitan Technical Vocational School in Wakefield, about 15 miles away, went through a similar situation a couple of years ago. The school was planning a new building and the collision repair program had low enrollment.