Starting no later than ninth grade, emphasis is being placed on students gaining a closer look at multiple career opportunities and helping Madison Park adopt and implement a powerful new approach to college and career planning for all of its students using the state’s “My Career and Academic Plan” or MyCAP.

Working with two documentary film producers who are CCN members, CCN sponsored and funded the development of a powerful video which has been shown to all 9th grade students at Madison Park. The video features employees at Suffolk Construction, Mass General Hospital, Feeney Brothers Utility Co. and the Boston Park Plaza Hotel discussing at their job sites the nature of their work and why Madison Park students might wish to consider adopting occupational training at Madison Park leading to success in these careers. This video was designed to assist 9th graders at the close of their “Exploratory” program, to help them rank order their top three choices for their “career major.”

A priority of the CCN is to provide all eligible upper-class students with a high-powered co-op experience by reaching out to the business community to generate additional co-op jobs across the spectrum of workshop occupations at Madison Park. Click here for more information.

To improve and increase student attainment of the most in-demand industry-recognized credentials (IRCs) relevant to each of the school’s 20 programs, the CCN plans to address the need for additional teacher training and raising funds for the purchase of necessary curriculum and testing materials.

A media campaign is being developed which is critical to continued growth in student enrollment, acceptance in the community, and attraction of new partners to support the school through coop opportunities and ultimately to boost the self-esteem and growth potential of Madison Park’s students.

In its first years of operation, the CCN has been successful in helping the school obtain several major grants, including a $500,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Capital skills grant for the purchase of capital equipment for the school’s new Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) program, a $150,000 grant for new equipment for its health assisting and dental assistant workshops, and a $240,000 grant from the state’s Career Technical Institute (CTI) program for the launch of new adult training programs in Welding and HVAC. CCN has developed a non-profit, called the Madison Park Career Tech Foundation to serve as its fiscal arm. The Foundation has also been granted an award from the Edvestor organization which was used at Madison Park to support career readiness through its IDEAL Career Pathway initiative.

The CCN is working with the Boston Public School’s staff to develop at Madison Park an adult training program to serve adults of all ages and backgrounds. Given the sizable amount of capital equipment needed for training purposes in all twenty of Madison Park’s workshops, the goal is to be able to open these workshops for adult classes in the evening, on weekends and during the summers so as to take full advantage of these assets. With the $240,000 CTI grant award, the school launched HVAC and welding training programs for adults in the spring of 2021. CCN continues to meet with school and district leaders to look for ways to grow this effort.

Developing this website to highlight the organization and provide on-going information about Madison Park and the CCN to a wider audience.

The large lot directly adjacent to Madison Park and denoted by the Boston Planning and Development Agency as Parcel 3 is now targeted for development, with major bids just submitted mid-March. Working with the Madison Park administration, the CCN has been a vocal advocate for a range of development options that would be of benefit to the school. This includes investment in improvements to the parcel that will make the rear of the school accessible from Parcel 3; the use of Madison Park students in the construction of the site; long term connections with new enterprises that may be located there; and direct financial assistance to support the school via so-called “community benefits.”

Strong career vocational technical schools offer their communities access to the goods and services that students are making in each of the -programs. Madison Park has had a long tradition of keeping its doors open for auto detailing, hair styling, catering, web design support, and more. The CCN hopes to fund administrative support to upgrade such enterprise at the school.