LTW Work-Based
Learning Resource Hub

All of the tools and guidance shared below emerged from interviews, focus groups, and workgroup sessions with veteran LTW internship (now WBL) coordinators from CBOs around New York City - as well as insights from recent research reports on high-quality work-based learning from Jobs for the Future (JFF), College Access: Research & Action (CARA), and the NYCPS Office of Student Pathways. We also include highlights from three site visits to LTW programs at West Brooklyn Community High School, Voyages Preparatory High School, and Lehman High School YABC, where we talked with students and observed practices in action. 

Why the Eskolta Work-Based Learning Resource HUB?

While educators at New York City’s alternative schools have been honing WBL models since 2005, often creating excellent resources, our research uncovered a few critical issues preventing LTW WBL Coordinators from accessing the specific resources they need. First, many of the work-based learning tools codified on the web have been designed for general ed students, and are not well-suited for transfer schools. Second, the often excellent resources designed by NYC transfer schools and YABC educators live siloed within specific programs, achieving great results in isolation and then fading from the system with natural turnover. LTW’s WBL Resource Hub aims to remedy both these issues. Busy educators need high-quality resources that will work for their students at their fingertips. With the WBL Resource Hub, we are bringing together an easily accessible collection of tools and guidance to support WBL, backed by research and vetted by LTW practitioners from across the NYC alternative ecosystem.

We center equity in these resources, focusing on building belonging, drawing on student expertise, offering scaffolds for all students to participate, and explicitly calling out systemic barriers, because we’ve found maintaining this focus is the single most important factor ensuring WBL resources work for vulnerable students. Too often WBL opportunities ignore this suite of concerns, with many well-regarded programs “creaming” high-performers with already excellent attendance rates, GPAs, and records of credit accumulation (CARA, 2023). In contrast, serving New York City’s alternative students means offering resources that work for the increasing number of young people who are neurodivergent with IEPs, dealing with unmet mental health needs, seeking asylum in NYC, learning English, or facing housing insecurity are all on the rise in the LTW program. As Jobs for the Future points out, this is the precise population with “a critical need to connect to the labor market while pursuing an education,” those most needing a functional work-based learning program that can keep them on track to graduation (JFF, 2016). 

How to Use this Resource Hub

As you navigate the hub, you’ll find general resources on the WBL Coordinators Resources page, and more specific and robust resources for Certification Programs and Internships. Bookending the hub, on the Stories From the Field page, you’ll hear stories from three different NYC alternative schools that further break down the support process and illustrate how students have experienced these WBL opportunities. Last it’s important to note that all the resources collected here are offerings; we hope you will continue to refine, adapt, and customize the resources to your school site’s needs as you learn what works and what doesn’t.

Acknowledgments

This resource was developed by Eskolta School Research and Design for the NYC Public Schools Office of Student Pathways Learning to Work Program. We thank our LTW Resource Workgroup for sharing their experiences and contributing their resources and feedback to this toolkit. Contributors include Trequan Bekka and Joanna Condori, Good Shepherd Services; Lherissa Nemorin and Shray Richardson, CAMBA; Shawn Henry and Antonette Cammock, Queens Community House; Allan Avidano, New York Center for Interpersonal Development; Natalia Alvarez-Plaud, East Side House. We also thank our hosts at West Brooklyn Community High School, Voyages Preparatory High School, and Lehman High School YABC, who graciously opened their doors to our researchers, and whose students provided candid reflection on their experiences with the internship program. We hope their stories help this toolkit come alive.