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Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesSCHOOL-TO-WORK PROGRAM ENTERS 2ND YEAR

SCHOOL-TO-WORK PROGRAM ENTERS 2ND YEAR

Virgin Islands educators and others involved in the School To Work/Career Council and local partnership program, designed to help students relate their academic training to actual workplace experiences, marked the program's second year Thursday.
The federal government is promoting the program in an effort to improve academic performance by giving students early exposure to the relationship between school, jobs and careers. The departments of Labor and Education are sponsoring ceremonies this week to mark the second year of the program. On Thursday, the event was held at Marriott's Frenchman's Reef Resort; on Friday, the program shifts to St. Croix's Botanical Garden.
In the territory to help promote the program is J.D. Hoye, founder of Keep the Change, Inc. and a former director of the national School to Work office. "In 1994, the School-to-Work act was passed making this concept possible," she said. "Through working with schools, students will get a better shot at the new economy."
Hoye said every state and territory under the American flag receives venture capital to launch the initiative.
Hoye has advised communities throughout the country on the School-to-Work program. She said Thursday she wants the Virgin Islands to benefit from what has worked elsewhere. "I come here to share the best practices that have worked around the country," she said. "We need to partner more rigorously between the education and the employer system."
She said the key concept of the program is to connect the student with employers sooner. "It provides the opportunity for the student to choose a career path earlier."
Students nationwide are being encouraged to perform better in the classroom, by being shown firsthand how those academic skills translate into rewarding and increasingly sophisticated work. "Its important for young people to be motivated to achieve at that high level given the changing technology in the workplace today," Hoye said. She said it's no longer enough to just go to college—students must think about going to college "to become something."
Hoye said that young people should be afforded the opportunity to explore many fields before settling on one chosen path. "That is what we try to do in the program." The School-to-Work program, its proponents say, broadens a student's perspective on the workplace and encourages individual preferences.

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