Family & Community Students & Families Student and Secondary Support
Connecting Activities

Connecting Activities (CA) is a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education initiative designed to drive and sustain the statewide school-to-career system. The CA state line item leverages the initial federal School to Work investment in Massachusetts that created self-sustaining Local Partnerships throughout the Commonwealth. CA dollars flow through the 16 local Workforce Investment Boards working in concert with their local Youth Councils to implement school-to-career policy and programming.

Through the local Workforce Investment Boards, CA funds pay for staff to recruit employers; prepare and place students in brokered work-based learning opportunities; and structure those experiences through the use of Massachusetts Work-Based Learning Plan.

Through CA, students achieve more learning hours by extending the classroom to the workplace while providing more adults who can support these students in one-to-one relationships.

During fiscal year 2007, Connecting Activities generated the following primary outcomes:

• Employers invested $42,139,183 in wages to support students in structured internships.

• 17,547 students were place in brokered internships at 6,590 employer sites.

  1. 10,458 students were placed in structured internships (WBL Level A).

  2. 5,167 of students served who scored in MCAS Levels 1 (Failing) and 2 (Needs Improvement) participated in "work and learning" internships (WBL Level B) connected to career and/or academic development.

  3. 1,922 of those who scored in MCAS Level 1 participated in integrated "work and learning" internships (WBL Level C) explicitly connected to academic remediation in English Language Arts and/or Math.

• 12,762 (73%) students utilized the Massachusetts Work-Based Learning (WBL) Plan on the job. The MA WBL Plan structures learning and productivity at the worksite and formally connects classroom lessons (MA Curriculum Frameworks) to work.

• 12,656 students participated in Job Shadowing experiences at 2,518 employer sites.

• 521 teachers participated in teacher externships.

For additional outcomes and information, contact:

Keith Westrich
MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
350 Main Street
Malden, MA 02148
Phone: (781) 338-3902
Fax: (781) 338-3950
Email: kwestrich@doe.mass.edu

Resources

FY '08 School-To-Work Fund Code - 480A2

FY '08 School-to-Work Fund Code 480A1

FY '08 School-to-Work Grants - Fund Code 480

FY '98 - FY '07 Connecting Activities Executive Summary