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New York City is expanding a career education program to serve a total of 135 schools, city officials said Monday. The program will also add two new career pathways for students, offering experience in the professions of heating ventilation and air-conditioning, as well as human and social services.
FutureReadyNYC, a signature initiative of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, provides schools with resources to launch new career tracks, along with paid work experience, in the education, technology, business, and health care sectors. The roughly $53 million initiative, which partners with CUNY, SUNY, Northwell Health, and Google, among other companies, invests $30 million directly to public high schools, with funds allocated based on the number of students enrolling in the career pathways at schools, according to city officials.
Under the expansion, the program added 36 new schools, serving roughly 15,000 students.
At a press conference at the Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn on Monday, Adams said the program had taken on a renewed urgency in light of the recent presidential election, in which concerns over the state of the economy and the job market had been a defining issue. In recent years, some efforts to expand access to career and technical education at school have seen bipartisan support across the country.
“There’s a gap for far too many, particularly in communities like Brownsville, Bedford Stuyvesant, South Jamaica, and the South Bronx, where there’s not an automatic transition into college,” Adams said. “Through FutureReadyNYC, we’re building a pipeline to employment, a pipeline to jobs, a pipeline to possibilities.”
Through the initiative, students have a chance to secure college credits, credentials, and work-based learning experiences before they graduate. In the past year, public school students earned roughly $8.2 million through work-based learning experiences, said schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos.
“This is a true testament to the difference career connected learning is already making in the lives of our students, putting them on a trajectory that will not only impact them, but their entire families,” she said.
The program’s HVAC pathway will provide students with instruction in construction safety, electrical and mechanical applications, installation and maintenance, and building decarbonization, city officials said. Meanwhile, the human and social services pathway will offer courses in human growth and development, counseling and mental health, and psychology.
Grecian Harrison, principal of the Boys and Girls High School, said the HVAC program would provide her students with valuable experience in a growing field.
“This is a high demand industry, and our scholars are learning about energy efficient systems and the integral ways that this knowledge can open doors for them,” she said.
The new pathways, and the 36 schools joining the program, have already begun running this year, city officials said.
Adams, who shared his own experience working as an auto mechanic prior to enrolling in higher education, said concerns over affordability are particularly high across the five boroughs. The FutureReadyNYC expansion kicks off an “affordability week” that will see Adams announce further investments in economic programs, according to city officials.
“Our young people are really afraid,” Adams said. “It’s almost like a cliff once they graduate. The system basically says, ‘Okay, we’re done with you. Figure it out on your own.’”
“By doing this, we are taking some of that fear out,” he added.
Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.
