Summary: In cooperation with business, industry leaders, and human services agencies, this district developed the Direct Care program, which helps older immigrant students develop academic and job skills.

As more and more teenage English-language learners immigrated to their area, school leaders in Rockland County, NY, realized that many of these students faced special challenges in attaining academic success and employment after high school.

Many older students who immigrated to the area arrived with little or interrupted formal education, said James M. Ryan, Superintendent of the Rockland County Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). In Rockland County twenty-nine percent of teenagers come from homes where English is not spoken.

"[School leaders] realized that too many [of these] students approach their final years of high school without preparation to earn a New York State Regents diploma and without any job skills," Ryan said.

To help, the BOCES board of education launched Direct Care, a program delivered through the cooperative's Career Education Center to help immigrant teenagers acquire job and academic skills. The nine districts that are part of the cooperative worked with business and industry leaders and human services agencies to develop the program.

Students in the program spend half a day preparing for their GED in their home school district. The other half of the day is spent at the Career Education Center, learning job skills to assist people who are elderly and those with disabilities--a field that is expected to grow rapidly over the next decade.

Students in a pilot program had an average 1.5 year gain in their reading levels and an average 14.3 percent gain on a Department of Labor employment readiness assessment.

The model is being replicated in all of Rockland County BOCES' career education classes. Along with career services, the Rockland County BOCES provides technical and alternative education, special education, adult education, and instructional services to its member districts.

The school district received a 2004 Magna Award from NSBA's American School Board Journal (ASBJ). Read ASBJ's complete profile of the FWISD program at www.asbj.com/magna/winners2004/Magna04_rockland.pdf The awards are sponsored by Sodexho School Services.

For more information, contact Gina Dietrich, integrated academics instructor, at (845) 627-4838 or by email at gdietricl@rboces.lhric.org. Visit the Rockland County BOCES web site at www.rocklandboces.org