During the July 21 Bethlehem Area School District board meeting Dr. Jack Silva reviewed two programs designed to give students attending Liberty HS career and learning opportunities in the community.

Silva, along with program director Doris Correll, described what the School to Work program and the Health Career Exploration Program will do for students and reviewed the memorandum of understanding for each program which partners the district with St. Luke's University Hospital.

The School to Work program provides English language learners the opportunity to use and develop their language skills by learning specific vocabulary for each rotation at the hospital and creating questions to ask the preceptors of the program. Students also learn about different health career opportunities. The program lasts 4-6 weeks and takes place in the morning.

"The St. Luke's school to work and health both rep where we want to be on the roadmap 2.0 and where we want to be on the learning pathways. The partnership we have established with St. Luke's is phenomenal … gives opportunity to use their language," said Carrell. "It is critical that we get them to use language in a real situation rather than just learning vocabulary."

The Health Career Exploration program provides job readiness skills training in the healthcare industry and subsidized work experiences in a health care setting to selected BASD English language learners. The program provides more linguistic opportunities for students to learn and practice the terminology they will need to perform healthcare jobs and will take place after school with expanded opportunities to explore a department such as X-Ray.

Health Career Exploration was developed in 2013 through a grant to provide the education needed for students serious about pursuing the health care industry along with twice a month sessions with an ESOL instructor.

"For those students truly interested, [we] wanted to provide more linguistic opportunities for them to learn all the language they need. [It's a] win-win situation for all the stakeholders," said Carrell.

The programs are limited to 18 students due to a limited number of volunteers at the hospital.

The memorandums of understanding for both programs with St. Luke's Hospital will be voted on at the August school board meeting.

In other news, the district received an update from Rick Wilson, representing the Weidenhammer company, on the progress of the district's technology upgrade. District officials and staff will be migrating over to a Google Mail, interviews have been conducted with elementary, middle, and high school principals to discuss wireless requirements, and software has been ordered for the service desk, among other work.