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. Working in partnership with the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, it establishes public-private partnerships through the 16 local Workforce Investment Boards to connect schools and businesses to provide structured work-based learning experiences for students that support both academic and employability skill attainment.

The CA state line item continues to leverage the initial federal School to Work investment in Massachusetts that created self-sustaining Local Partnerships throughout the Commonwealth. Connecting Activities supports 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. For more information on the purpose, history and resulting student outcomes of Connecting Activities, please see the CA Education Research Brief found at: http://www.doe.mass.edu/research/briefs.html

During fiscal year 2009, Connecting Activities generated the following primary outcomes:

• Employers invested $29,335,507 in wages to support students in structured internships.
• 13,051 students were place in brokered internships at 5,531 employer sites.
  1. 8,605 students were placed in structured internships (WBL Level A).
  2. 3,262 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. 1,184 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.
• 9,549 (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.
• 12,582 students participated in Job Shadowing experiences at 2,156 employer sites.
• 175 teachers participated in teacher externships.

For additional outcomes and information, contact:

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

Resources

FY98-FY08 Connecting Activities Executive Summary