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Hi,

This is a description of our Summer STEM Career Development Program in Haverhill, MA. We are partnering with our local workforce development board, MassHire and also received a state ASOST grant to help support this program. The MassHire component will provide some Career readiness training, program funding and stipends for the high school students.

The overall design of this summer program is to support students at each level of the career readiness spectrum: Career Awareness, Exploration, and Immersion Activities. Each level will involve a different group of students who are at those various levels of career readiness and will include a week of skills and leadership training for the high school students. We will serve up to 60 students. In order to provide a cohesive set of enhanced Career Awareness Exploration and Immersion activities for both middle and high school students we are proposing to expand our current summer program offerings.

The Career Awareness Level is designed as a new program offering for current 5th - 8th grade students who enroll in our regular summer Access 21 program (21st CCLC grant). This component is in partnership with the Access 21 program. Students will attend the regular summer program hours, Monday through Thursday, for four hours per day for four weeks for a total of 64 program hours. We will enroll up to twenty students in this component. These students will be exposed to a variety of technology, engineering, healthcare and biomedical careers, for which course pathways already exist at our high school. For some of these pathways, students have to enroll when they are in 8th grade, in middle school, without having any awareness of the particular career pathway. They will become aware of these career opportunities through project-based hands on learning activities designed by the high school students described below.

The Career Exploration Level is designed for 14-15 year old students who are interested in exploring a variety of STEM Career pathways, acquiring leadership skills and serving as students leaders to plan and present the STEM Exploration/Career Awareness information to the middle school students who enroll in the Access 21 summer STEM Career Exploration program. We will enroll five project leads and fifteen additional students for a total of twenty students at this level. Students at this level will receive training in Career Readiness skills, and Leadership and teamwork skills through project-based learning, field trips and guest speakers. These students will develop project-based workshops for the middle school students requiring higher order thinking to solve real-world problems.

The Career Immersion Level is for older students who will receive 30 hours of career readiness training before heading out to a worksite-based Internship for 120 hours during the summer. The career readiness training includes classes that will prepare students for the workplace, such as cover letter and Resume writing, interviewing, workplace etiquette, etc.

We already have a robust Internship program at our high school that started in our after school program ten years ago. It was so successful, that the high school principal incorporated it into the school day and hired our after school Internship Coordinators to work full-time during the school day. We still offer it after school and in the summer as well and students can receive .5 credit for successfully completing the program.

I can provide more info if needed. We are really excited about this and hope that we can still offer it as planned, considering the current pandemic. Thanks for the great professional development you are offering. My staff and I have been participating in many of the modules that are provided through your website.