Jul 13 2008
School and Work Experience - a collaboration with Chautauqua Works
Summer school this year, 6 weeks at the Hewes Center for High School students involves a collaborative model between Erie 2 CC BOCES and Chautauqua Works, a clearing house for all county wide jobs and a state funded initiative to promote employment and employment skills amidst the workforce in Chautauqua County.
In the morning all students grades 9-12 are engaged in academic subject instruction tying in school learning to skills and information needed in the workplace. Relevance is portrayed for students between what is taught in school and how it relates to the workplace. In the afternoon, all students are engaged in a work model. Students aged 16+ are working for Chautauqua Works both on and off-campus in jobs ranging from housekeeping-maintenance-pool aides-cafeteria aides-information technology assistant. If the student is deemed eligible in terms of family income guidelines then he/she is paid for this work$7.15 an hour by their employer Chautauqua Works. If the student does not meet eligibility requirements he/she is considered an employee in training (EIT) and does not get paid by Chautauqua Works.
Points of Interest:
- All students have received training on work place etiquette, sexual harassment and fidelity to the employer. Additional training has been provided about filling out tax forms, time cards etc. This work place orientation lasted approx. 2 hours.
- All student have been assigned a work place counselor from Chautauqua Works who checks up on the students and answers their questions about work place difficulties/problems on the job. In addition, daily work place support is provided by the teachers of BOCES who monitor the students.
In order for this program to have been initiated at the Hewes Center of Erie 2 CC BOCES, our district Superintendent Robert Giuffreda had to sign of an the agreement between the school and Chautauqua Works. In addition, the program required a sign off from the United Staff Association (USA)/ a Union within the BOCES that student employees would not take away work from members and that there would be no decrease in the number of persons employed by the USA over the summer period.
One response so far
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Congratulations with your initiative on applying education to the workplace. The more things change, the more the stay the same.
My first Alternative School was with the Cattaraugus/Allegany BOCES New Directions Alternative School in 1989 and it was a School to Work program that ran throughout the regular school year. Our format was very similar to yours, but our students worked all day for a week and attended classes the next week due to transportation issues. They also received a stipend for the work in their placements.
I truly believe that such learning experiences provided those students with a window to the world and also helped them understand the value of education. Additional benefits included encouraging students to stay in school to graduate. Students were often times offered weekend or summer jobs by the employers based on their positive work performance. Some students even retained those jobs after graduation and chose that placement as their career path. Those jobs provided the impetus for some students to go on to college and become more proficient in the skills and return to the workforce in the county.
Recently while supervising student teachers at the Ellicottville High School, I happened upon a young lady who was a student in New Directions. Since her graduation she has married, raised a family and has enrolled in college to become a certified teaching assistant. Wow! Her journey as taken her from a troubled rebellious teenager to becoming a teaching assistant. She thanked me over and over for all the patience, persistence and dedication that our program provided her to keep her in school and out of trouble. Her comments that she wants to give help back to kids made my heart sing. We never know where our kindness and professional dedication to our students and their lives will take them, but that feedback made all the years of teaching, administration and professional development worth every minute of it.
Good luck to you, your program and your students. It’s good to see that Bob Guiffreda still remembers from where he came and is still as dedicated as you are to doing what’s right for kids.