he Bathroom Bandits joined WorkAbility I (WAI), a career awareness, exploration and training program for special education students ages 12 to 22, and were hired to operate the snack bar during soccer games.

School staff “were hoping that was going to be that carrot that kept them engaged and wanting to be at school and continue to persevere,” said Zach Franceschetti, San Joaquin County Office of Education WAI program coordinator. Historically, the program has had significant impacts on students, he explained.

“It’s just a huge boost to their confidence. They’re much more willing to challenge themselves and try out new things because they have that feeling of accomplishment,” Franceschetti said. “They have that sense of pride where they’re willing to step out of their comfort zone, and once they leave us, they graduate and they’re willing to try enrolling in trade programs or community colleges to continue to get those degrees or certifications.”

At the end of the season, Franceschetti received an update via email, which read in part:

WAI was piloted by the California Department of Education (CDE) in 1981 and has since grown into a program that provides students with disabilities opportunities to participate in career speaker presentations, mock interviews, job shadowing, industry tours and career exploration. This allows students to find their interests, skills and abilities while learning job-search, readiness and retention skills.

San Joaquin COE’s Vocational Skills Lab helps prepare students for WAI by assessing skillsets and providing students a chance to explore their interests and abilities prior to seeking employment on or off campus with support of a job coach if needed. The lab exposes students to five different career areas including food preparation, custodial and production. “We have a business room where they’re working on cash handling, we have a construction room where they’re doing wood projects, metal projects and electrical projects, and we also have a computer and technology room where students are doing data entry and information management,” Franceschetti said.

Ultimately, students who participate in WAI can graduate high school prepared to go into career fields ranging from construction to sales to information technology to hospitality. And according to Franceschetti, a recent partnership with the California Department of Rehabilitation has allowed the program to take on more students.

In the 2022–23 school year, San Joaquin COE had 100 students in work placement through WAI. In 2023–24, the number jumped to 145 students, and last year, 214 students were placed. As of this writing in November, 200 students have already received job placements in the current school year.

Participation in career technical education (CTE) pathways has grown substantially in recent years as federal, state and local educational agencies seek to better prepare students for life beyond the walls of the classroom. According to the CDE, CTE enrollment in California increased by about 200,000 students between 2012 and 2025.

Meanwhile, dual enrollment, which allows high school students to take college courses and earn college credits, has also expanded. Almost 165,000 students — about one-third of the high school class of 2025 — participated in some form of dual enrollment last year, according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).

While such programming is attractive to high-achieving students, programs aimed at underserved students are positively impacting the lives of young people. The Rising Scholars Program at Lake Tahoe Community College (LTCC), for instance, serves juveniles who are currently and formerly incarcerated and detained in Northern California.

Through the Rising Scholars Program, justice-impacted youth can earn their Associate Degree for Transfer in Sociology and CTE certifications, as well as participate in yearly record expungement clinics and leadership development. Participants also receive dedicated academic counseling, priority registration and more.

“There’s that old saying: ‘Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.’ I take it a step further. Put your feet in the Velcro, state-issued shoes for youth — they don’t even get the same shoes that we have,” said Shane Reynolds, LTCC Rising Scholars director. “At Lake Tahoe, we’re not just saying, ‘Come up and stay in our housing.’ We have that full wraparound financial support where we can decrease their housing costs, we subsidize their meal plans, and we have daily check-ins with all the individual post-incarcerated students on campus. As a campus community, from the board of trustees to our weekend staff, this student population is accepted — and not just accepted, but valued and surrounded with love, kinship, care and compassion.”

Research consistently shows that students who participate in college and career preparation programs are more likely to engage in school, graduate, enroll in higher education and/or vocational training after high school, and have better long-term health and financial outcomes than they otherwise may have.

Looking to further expand and improve student access to high-quality college and career education, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) announced in September the creation of its Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program.

“The ideal secondary school under this vision is not one-size-fits-all because students aren’t one-size-fits-all. So, it’s a vision in which schools and educators are empowered to design around the needs of students and communities,” Sutcher said.

According to Christine Olmstead, CCEE Secondary School Redesign and direct technical assistance lead, expanding access to college and career education is core to the goals of the pilot program, particularly as it relates to preparing students furthest from opportunity. “That’s really what this is looking at, is when you look at our most marginalized students, what do we do as a school system to move them further towards opportunity rather than continue to put barriers in their way?” she said.

Removing barriers is precisely what the WAI program aims to do for the students who participate. Eighty-four percent of the 500 hiring managers surveyed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year said most high school students are not prepared to enter the workforce, and a lack of soft skills play a strong role in that.

“We really focus on trying to prepare our students to be well-rounded employees,” Franceschetti said. “We know the positive impact that soft skills can have on the student obtaining and keeping their job once they’ve been hired. These are the types of skills that a lot of us assume people just know naturally, but at some point, I think someone taught us how to have a positive attitude when you’re at work and things that are appropriate to talk about while you’re on the clock, and we’re trying to prevent our students from learning these lessons the hard way because data shows us that adults with special needs have a harder time getting hired. So, once they do land that position, we want to make sure that they can excel.

“I love the CTE pathways because our students really benefit from being exposed to that instruction,” he continued. “CTE programs are great for our students because those classes can teach these skills in a variety of different ways, and they’re receiving this instruction from a teacher that’s credentialed and also an expert in that CTE pathway. They have their class lectures and they utilize textbooks, but the students also get hands-on training that allows them to apply what they were taught and build or create something tangible and applicable to what they’ll be doing one day once they’re out of the classroom and working in that industry.”

John was released 12 hours before moving into LTCC’s new campus housing, conveniently located about a hundred yards from the Rising Scholars Program office, and is now thriving. He will graduate in the fall quarter with a grade point average of over 3.5 and a full ride scholarship to the University of California (UC), Davis where he will be provided support with housing, food, tuition, textbooks and more through the Underground Scholars Program.

“He’s 18-years-old — and without the passage of SB 823 he’d be sitting in an adult Level IV prison yard. A young man of color, still essentially a kid, trying to survive a place no child should ever have to navigate,” Reynolds explained. “We all know that when young people are arrested or detained that early, a part of them stays frozen at that age. Instead of being on a Level IV prison yard, he’s here with us — as a leader on our campus. That’s incredible. That’s beautiful.”

California’s current efforts to promote access to college and career education include a patchwork of programs and initiatives.

In 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the Freedom to Succeed initiative — an executive order directing state education, workforce and economic development leaders to work collaboratively with local public education systems and employers to develop a Master Plan on Career Education. The plan should guide the state in its efforts to strengthen career pathways, prioritize hands-on learning and improve access and affordability.

The Golden State Pathways Program (GSPP) aims to create smooth transitions from TK-12 to postsecondary education and careers in high-wage, high-skill, high-growth industries in part by better aligning education and workforce sectors. Research from the Public Policy Institute of California released in October found that as of February 2025, roughly $426 million of the $500 million GSPP funds provided in the 2022–23 state budget have been allocated to 372 LEAs in all regions of the state, with implementation grants going to those serving more low-income and racially diverse students than the statewide average.

The report concluded that, despite considerable excitement about using GSPP to support work-based learning, once GSPP funds are exhausted, “finding the resources needed to sustainably develop and maintain work-based learning programs, acceleration strategies … and student supports with annual one-time allocations may prove challenging, particularly in an environment of fiscal restraint.”

With its Secondary School Redesign pilot still in the earliest stages, the CCEE is already thinking about how to ensure LEAs that participate are able to sustain their efforts. Part of that will simply be working to help LEAs access the financial and other resources already available to them. “There are lots of places for districts to go to get the support that they need, it’s just helping them find it that’s sometimes a barrier,” Olmstead said.

Perhaps the biggest challenge will be aligning California’s TK-12 and higher education systems, Olmstead said. For example, the state’s UC and California State University (CSU) systems both require incoming freshmen to have completed the A-G course sequence in high school. This set of 15 courses across seven subject areas is meant to ensure that students who enroll in a UC or CSU are prepared for the academic demands of college.

However, as California and federal leaders push CTE pathways, the disconnect between career education, mastery-based learning and traditional views of higher education preparation is apparent.

“If our K-12 systems are moving in this direction, what do we need to do to respond to that?” Olmstead asked. She noted that there are already districts throughout the state that send in mastery-based transcripts, which UCs accept and evaluate differently than other transcripts. “There’s already a process in the UC system for this to happen. If K-12 is pushing this, higher ed needs to be ready for it.”

In the meantime, she said it’s vital that LEAs continue to expose students to the future careers that await them and communicate how college and CTE pathways can help them achieve their goals.

Franceschetti agreed, and with the WAI program in San Joaquin County, he said there’s been an emphasis on exposing students to as many different career opportunities as possible. “Watching those students find their niche and that thing that really gives them purpose is exciting,” he said.

Just look at the Bathroom Bandits, Franceschetti continued. “One of the teachers told me that they’re kind of taking on a mentor role with the students that have extensive needs at that school, helping them learn how to tie their shoes — those daily living skills. So, they’re just more engaged and happier to be at school. They’re finding where they get that sense of pride.”