A new program at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School is exposing students to potential career paths through school-wide programming connecting high schoolers to the professional world. 

The Career Exploration Initiative, run by the school’s Career Champions Network, hosted three career days in February, has guest speakers slated in March, and field trips scheduled in April. The program also includes a “Cardinal of the Month” award to incentivize perfect attendance and good academic standing. The prize: a $150 pair of sneakers.

The network is a nonprofit formed four years ago by retired Northeastern professor Barry Bluestone as a partner and support system for Boston’s only vocational high school. The organization, conceived as an antidote to the school’s low graduation rate and sinking enrollment, is made up of a coalition of local leaders from more than 40 civic, business, and labor organizations striving to support Madison Park students in entering the workforce after graduation.

Bluestone’s goal: Make the Roxbury school the hub of career technical education in Boston. 

“When we first started working here, quite honestly, we were concerned,” he said while sitting on a concrete bench by the school’s entrance. “The attendance rate could have been much better, and the graduation rate was not what we wanted it to be.”

Since the launch of CCN, the Madison Park graduation rate has risen and is now on par with the city average, Bluestone said, while enrollment is up 7.5 percent since 2021. The school has 20 vocational programs ranging from carpentry and automotive technology to culinary arts and TV broadcasting.

Network co-founder Shailah Stewart said the missing puzzle piece in student success is often the ability to envision themselves in a professional role. The mantra she often uses at CCN is: “You’ve got to see it to be it.”

Stewart, who spent her career working in education consulting, established CCN with Bluestone and Joshua Ash, the CEO of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership. The nonprofit works directly with Paul Neal, the head of the school, to design programming that best serves students.

“I think sometimes Black and Brown kids are not confident learners, and I think it’s because of the world we live in and how people portray them,” said Neal, who graduated from a vocational high school in Andover. 

At Madison Park, 53 percent of students are Hispanic, and 41 percent are Black, with over 85 percent of students coming from low-income households.

“So, the idea is to bring folks in that can speak to the students, so they can understand that there are possibilities,” Neal said. “That’s the biggest piece, giving students what it is to dream about.”

On an icy Tuesday morning in February, a dozen bleary-eyed high schoolers in sky blue scrubs fidgeted in their classroom, waiting. Mayor Wu and her team arrived first, followed by Sophia Bellegarde, a Roxbury native and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center intern. 

Bellegarde introduced herself and described her journey from arriving in the US from Haiti as a child to working in a clinical lab to landing the Beth Israel internship. 

“When you look for mentors, get somebody that looks like you,” she said. “That can really get you.”

After the first day of the career fair, Bluestone said he was thrilled to see students engaging with the guest speakers. He said he hoped the conversations left students thinking: “My god, I could really do that.”

While the students are at the heart of the initiative, Boston’s economy is a catalyst. 

Bluestone, who has studied labor economics since 1986 and was the founding dean of Northeastern’s School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs, said the job outlook for young people in Boston is staggering.

“There are a lot of baby boomers like myself who are now retiring,” he said. “We have an enormous need to fill that gap. We’re going to literally need hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people to learn all the trades here to meet that need.”

For her part, Wu, who sent a letter to the city council on Feb. 10 requesting its approval to seek $750 million in state funding to renovate the Madison Park campus, remarked in front of the snow-covered school that Madison Park’s potential could not be underestimated. 

“This school represents the gem of how we’re going to connect Boston to the economy of the future and all of the talent,” she said. 

This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism