BELCHERTOWN — Belchertown Public Schools has too few students to fill five buildings. Pathfinder Tech in Palmer has too little space for its burgeoning student population and ever-growing waitlist. Together, they can solve each other’s dilemmas.
Only a couple weeks after the Belchertown School Committee announced the June closure of Cold Spring School, Pathfinder Tech unveiled its plans to expand into that building next year. This new extended campus will open up at least 150 seats at the vocational school and spur the creation of new programs like engineering and medical assisting.
“This will allow us to clear the waitlist so students in all nine towns, if the students are qualified, will have a seat. That’s a game-changer for us,” Pathfinder Tech Superintendent Eric Duda said.
He said the school has a lot of applications beyond those nine towns from students who can’t get into another career technical school, and the addition of a satellite campus in Belchertown will enable Pathfinder to offer seats for non-resident tuition students.
Built in 1973, Pathfinder Tech offers 15 different vocational programs to students in Belchertown, Granby and seven other towns. In the last decade, these towns have seen a 20% decline in its K-12 populations, while Pathfinder is experiencing a higher number of students coming from their eighth grade pools.
Cold Spring School has felt that 20% decline as smaller classes of kindergartners and first grade students populate the halls. The building is the oldest among the five schools in Belchertown, costs over $500,000 to operate and requires significant renovations to meet the needs of its young students.
However, Duda said Cold Spring is a good fit for Pathfinder. It’s only a 10-minute drive from the school’s main campus in Palmer. Despite opening in 1954, Duda was surprised to find the building in such good condition.
“It’s been well cared for by the town and I think it showed,” he said. “It’s just a wonderful thing that’s been a preserved taxpayer investment.”
Belchertown has been making plans to close Cold Spring and lease it since the town began working on designs for a new Jabish Brook Middle School a few years ago. While the middle school project failed at the ballot box, Duda reignited discussions with Town Manger Steve Williams and Superintendent Brian Cameron when the School Committee committed to a slow and organized closure of Cold Spring as part of override deliberations.
“It was not a factor in the closing of the school,” Williams said. “[Superintendent Cameron] and I started those conversations two years ago because we didn’t want the building to be vacant. There’s not going to be any cost of us keeping the building in a state of good repair. Even an empty building has an expense, not to mention the fact that they typically deteriorate rapidly once they’re vacant.”
Since the lease details are still in the works, it’s unclear whether the new deal will bring in significant and much-needed revenue to the town. However, Williams said the expansion will undoubtedly benefit Belchertown by not only opening educational opportunities, but providing support to communities through projects. Students in the carpentry, plumbing and electrical vocational programs helped build the Belchertown Fire Department’s living quarters, saving the town $1.5 million in construction costs.
Pathfinder Tech will begin some IT renovations in January, but most of the work will occur after the building closes on June 30, 2026. This gives the vocational school a tight seven-week window to upgrade flooring, ceilings and paint. Duda said that the renovations will likely occur in three phases, but it will be ready for students in time for a ribbon-cutting on Aug. 26, 2026.
The key to this tight renovation schedule is securing a portion of state Career Technical Education Capacity Expansion grants. In September, the Healey-Droll administration allocated $60 million for capital improvements at vocational schools. Pathfinder Tech is hoping to receive $5 million to fund the Cold Spring renovations.
More space allows for more career opportunities for students. Health care professionals, engineering and medical assisting programs will move into the new building, housing at least 100 students and open a minimum of 50 spots on the main campus. Other programs like safety public legal services and early childhood education are also in the works.
“The town of Belchertown has been absolutely wonderful to work with,” Duda said. “They’ve been extremely supportive with this change. I think they are truly forward-thinking individuals and they’ve basically said with open arms we don’t want to see this building vacant. This is a wonderful educational opportunity and they want to be part of it.”