Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Career Pathways topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Bethlehem Area SD highlights expansion of career pathways, pre-apprenticeship plans
Summary
District curriculum committee reviewed a year-one report on career pathways that listed job shadows, internships, a planned pre-apprenticeship in advanced manufacturing and a $200,000 equipment grant to support it.
At a Curriculum Committee meeting, Bethlehem Area School District officials and staff reviewed year-one outcomes from the district's career pathways initiative and described plans to expand internships, job shadows and a pre-apprenticeship in advanced manufacturing.
Amy Myers, the district's career pathways liaison, said the program aims to "help students explore and prepare for future careers by connecting their interests and their skills to real world opportunities." She told the committee she focused this first year on education in seminar classes, building community partnerships and creating a catalog of opportunities students can access on the district's career pathways board.
The presentation listed multiple partnerships and opportunities created this year: resume workshops with Guardian Insurance and CareerLink; job shadows at the Historic Bethlehem museums and at City Hall; internships such as a digital media producer role producing elective-course videos, an immersive learning center content-creator internship, legal-studies internships at the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas, and a St. Luke's 3D-print and innovation lab internship. The staff said 17 students attended an information session about a new pre-apprenticeship in advanced manufacturing and 13 enrolled by the end of that session.
District staff said the pre-apprenticeship will be funded in part by a roughly $200,000 grant to purchase high-tech equipment; staff will train instructors and run the course in partnership with members of the iTech employer group to provide industry-aligned experiences. The committee emphasized plans to embed career pathways more consistently into school culture, increase teacher engagement with the program and streamline onboarding for community partners.
Supporters at the meeting said the program is intended to expand hands-on career exposure that is often more available to students in private schools, and they noted external attention: the district recently presented its program at Northampton Community College and drew interest from neighboring districts and regional economic development organizations.
Officials said students who participated reported high engagement, and staff framed year two as a period to scale partnerships, expand internship capacity and finalize equipment purchases and staff training for the advanced-manufacturing pre-apprenticeship.
