CARA was excited to work this winter with ExpandEd to convene a group of stakeholders from across NYC to discuss how to expand the Summer College & Career Intensive program. Summer CCI is a NYC-based partnership among Summer Youth Employment (SYEP), CBOs, and CUNY. Building off of the early success of the model (see Reimagining the Summer after High School through Career Connected Learning), representatives from NYCPS, CUNY, DYCD, the Mayor’s Office, and CBOs explored the possibilities that the model holds to expose college-bound  high school graduates to both work and college classes in the summer between graduation and matriculation.

The convening emerged with two recommendations for scaling the model:

Expand the number of students participating in Summer College and Career Intensive through youth-development focused SYEP placements.

This approach would:

• Build and support a needed talent pipeline for NYC’s expanding summer, after-care and early childhood programming;
• Offer summer placements to more students who have expressed interest in education pathways and position them to continue working in youth-serving jobs while in college;
• Support more students to successfully matriculate into and persist through CUNY

Expand and develop additional Summer College and Career Intensive career-pathways models (e.g. Healthcare, Business, and Civil Service).

This approach would:

• Address the varied career interests of NYCPS graduates through a structured career-connected learning experience;
• Introduce employers in high growth fields to CUNY students;
• Provide support to others sectors to develop high quality internships for students.

CARA looks forward to working for a fifth year with Summer CCI and to supporting further expansion of a model that addresses student, NYCPS, CUNY and the city’s priorities.