Classroom at the Workplace

1. Classroom at the Workplace Workplace Learning as an Alternative Model for Student Engagement

2. Making the Workplace aLearning Place Boston Public Schools + Employers • Pair academic learning and MCAS remediation with professional skills development to reinforce the connections between academic and workplace success.

3. Partnership Roles The PIC… • Recruits, trains, and mediates relationships among program participants (employers, BPS teachers, BPS students yet to pass MCAS) • Coordinates program logistics and funding Employers… • Hire and supervise students • Provide paid release time and classroom space

4. Partnership Roles (cont.) Boston Public Schools… • BPS teachers teach daily (Mon-Fri) 90-minute math or English/language arts (ELA) classes at the worksite • Teachers Attend trainings and bi-weekly debriefings • BPS helps identify, enroll, and make students job-ready BPS students yet to pass MCAS… • Work fulltime for an employer for real wages • Attend 90-minute class every week day • Develop academic competencies and professional skills simultaneously, connecting academic and workplace success.

5. Key Components: Model • Students earn real wages • Comprehensive student support network • 1½ hours per day, 5 days per week, 7 weeks: 52.5 learning hours. • Mutual reinforcement of professional and academic skills • Exposure and experience

6. Key Components: Curricula • Age Appropriate • Incorporates Technology • Sectional pre and post tests • Test item analyses

7. English/Language Arts Reading is FAME: Mastery of Meaning Expand vocabulary and comprehension through activities using higher order thinking skills. Reader’s & Writer’s Workshop Emphasizes process and ownership of opinions and expression Individualized student-teacher conferences and open discussion. Mathematics Summit Educational Group’s MCAS Mathematics Course Book A Five MCAS content areas: Number Sense & Operations; Patterns, Relations, and Algebra; Geometry; Measurement; and Data Analysis, Statistics, and Probability. MCAS Test Item Analyses for each student Assess students’ strengths and weaknesses within these five content areas. Classroom Curricula

8. Key Components: Measurement • Academic: • Pre and post test scores • Track MCAS scores and passing rates • Program attendance rates • (High school graduation and college-going rates) • Attitudinal and Professional: • Work-based learning plans • Survey students, teachers, employers on Classroom at the Workplace and employment experience.

9. Preliminary Results: Program Attendance Rates • 800 students have participated in Classroom at the Workplace over 5 years • 81% average student attendance rate. • Over 73% of students had an 80% attendance rate or higher.

10. Preliminary Results: Pre and Post Tests

11. Pre and Post Tests • Average of 17 percentage point increase from math pre to post tests • Average of 33 percentage point increase from ELA pre to post tests

12. Preliminary Results: MCAS Passing Rates

13. MCAS Passing Rates • Over the past 5 years, over 73% of Classroom at the Workplace students passed both MCAS tests, earning their competency requirement