(Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP) Alvirne High School junior Logan Casey, one of several CTE ambassadors who accompanied U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-NH, on her tour of the school's CTE building Monday, tells Hassan about the program's expansive auto shop during one of several stops.

HUDSON – U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-NH, walked into the first of a series of Alvirne High School classrooms one afternoon last week, introduced herself and told the students she was there to learn.

“I’d love to learn more about this program,” Hassan said by way of explanation for her visit, which featured a guided tour through the Palmer Career and Technical Education (CTE) Center.

During her visit to the center, which is named after the late Webster “Web” Palmer, the longtime Alvirne vocational education teacher who grew the school’s agriculture program into the beginnings of today’s multi-faceted CTE program, Hassan gave the staff and students a brief update on the bipartisan legislation that she, as a member of the Senate Health, Education, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and some Senate colleagues are currently working on.

Meanwhile, the bill that called for a $75 million increase in the so-called Perkins programs, which was part of the year-end government funding legislation that passed late last year, directly support CTE programs at schools throughout the state, including the Palmer Center. Hassan and colleagues are now working on funding for career pathways programs at the post-secondary level.

The Perkins programs refers to the Vocational Education Act of 1984, named for Carl D. Perkins, which authorizes the spending of federal funds to support vocational education programs.

According to Eric Frauwirth, the director of the CTE program, about 600 students are enrolled in the program, 400 of which are from Hudson and 200 that are bused in from several neighboring communities.

Frauwirth, who led Hassan’s tour, was accompanied by school district personnel, school administrators and several of the 40 “CTE ambassadors,” students who represent a particular course within the program.

Hassan was particularly interested in the work going on in the computer science classroom, telling the students that she has been involved in the ongoing efforts to “modernize government” when it comes to its technological infrastructure.

“I’m working a lot on cybersecurity issues … we’re trying to shift the whole infrastructure to more modern systems, to get government up to speed with businesses,” Hassan said.

Still in use, she added, are programs like Cobalt and other legacy apps, which is software that is considered outdated or obsolete. “We can’t find anyone to program it,” Hassan said of the older software.

Most all of the the classes Hassan toured were taking place in classrooms that are far from traditional in setup and appearance.

The heavy duty mechanics course, for instance, closely resembles a typical auto repair shop, and on this day Alvirne High junior Tyler Reynolds was in the midst of helping several other students in the program loosen bolts on a beat-up Chevy Silverado pickup truck when Hassan approached and asked him a couple of questions.

The two spoke over the din of air-powered tools operated by students under the supervision of course instructor Ernest Brown.

“She just came up and started asking me questions,” Reynolds told fellow students after Hassan departed.

“It was pretty neat.”

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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