Representative Dolan introduced her short form bill, H.275, to the House Education Committee on Wednesday. Her intention with the bill was to establish education grant pilot projects focused on middle schools for 8^th and 9^th graders to get them enthusiastic about going to a trade school and to understand the available opportunities. She believes this will be particularly valuable for rural union school districts.  

Dolan hopes that there would be a partnership with the school districts and businesses who would want to volunteer and become mentors to the students. She reached out to superintendents who were very excited about the bill and would probably want to testify before the Committee. About 12 different pilots were contemplated throughout the state, but lots of details would have to be ironed out. She believes this would be worthwhile to get students to understand the value of technical education by participating in the program. She assumes there should be a full-time employee to oversee the program and a budget of $5-5.5M for set up costs. She mentioned that Spaulding and Harwood had already shown interest in participating in a pilot program.