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This spring, several Pleasanton Unified School District high school students will be the first to complete a new youth apprenticeship program that PUSD touts as the first of its kind in California.
The program, which allows students to work with companies in the areas of cybersecurity and robotics, is entering its second year and according to Amos Nugent III, director of career pathways and adult learning at PUSD, the plan is to continue growing the number of student and business participants.
“These programs are important because it solves the workforce development needs for local businesses while giving students hands-on, real-world learning experiences that bring their classroom learning to life,” Nugent said. “Through this process, students become well-prepared for life and a successful future whether they plan to go to college, into a career or some combination of the two after graduating high school.”
In June 2024, the district launched its first-ever “competency-based youth apprenticeships” program specifically for high school students in the district’s career technical education (CTE) program.
The youth apprenticeships use a competency-based model of teaching, which focuses on students demonstrating their skills and knowledge.
According to Nugent, during the 2022-23 school year PUSD’s Career Pathways and Adult Learning Department and the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce had discussed ways to address certain issues like workforce shortages and housing shortages by involving students.
Eventually, one organization within the chamber agreed to partner with PUSD to develop a youth apprenticeship. According to California’s Department of Industrial Relations, registered apprenticeship programs for youth “combine academic and technical classroom instruction with paid work experience through a proven earn-and-learn model”.Â
“It provides the foundation for youth to choose from a number of pathways across a wide range of industry sectors and transferable skills to the workforce,” according to the department’s website.
PUSD was then awarded an initial California Apprenticeship Initiative planning grant to hire a coordinator in order to begin the work of implementing the apprenticeship program, which Nugent said is now the first of its kind in the state.
“PUSD is the first organization in the state to implement this new option in this way, therefore our program is a blueprint for the entire state that can be replicated by other people and organizations to produce similar outcomes for their students,” he said.
After several meetings during that 2022-23 school year, the original employer who helped launch the program identified cybersecurity and robotics engineering as two workforce sectors where students could be hired as apprentices.
Then in October, PUSD successfully registered both year-long apprenticeships in the state and in January, the district also registered the two with the U.S. Department of Labor.
Originally, the apprenticeship program began with four apprentices but with different employers than the one that originally helped create the program.
Since then, Nugent said PUSD had worked with the chamber to build a “district-wide work based learning program that resulted in 84% of business engagement survey respondents being open to offering opportunities to students, 13 businesses hosting students, and 17 students being placed in a work based learning opportunity.”
“We currently have two active employers who are partnering with us, California Business Technology and Kensington Laboratories,” Nugent said.
He said the apprenticeships are available to any high school student who is currently enrolled in the associated CTE pathway and are either on track to completing or have already completed the pathway.
“This means the student will take all CTE classes for that pathway in order according to the established two or three year sequence,” he said. “In this case, we are referring to our computer science and engineering pathways.”
As far as funding goes, Nugent said PUSD is not concerned about losing the apprenticeship program amid recent district budget cut discussions mainly because it is primarily funded by multiple grants the district received through the California Apprenticeship Initiative, which is administered by the California Community Colleges.
In fact, he said the district is actively looking for more local businesses who want to participate so they can “expand this program and make it available for students in all CTE pathways”.
Nugent said the district will be presenting its story on the dual-registered youth apprenticeships at an upcoming state conference for CTE in Sacramento in March.
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