LYNN — Pathways, Inc. Adult Education & Training has been awarded a $100,000 grant for programming that provides academic instruction and job training for its students.
The funding from the Kraft Family Foundation will go toward the organization’s career pathways in healthcare, which is a partnership with Lynn Vocational Technical Institute, and early childhood education, a partnership with North Shore Community College, according to Edward Tirrell, Pathways CEO.
Funds will also go toward the organization’s core programs, English as a second language, or English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and Adult Basic Education (ABE), which leads to a high school certificate, Tirrell said.
Pathways, formerly known as Operation Bootstrap, works with adults who do not have a high school diploma, or need to learn to improve their English while figuring out a career pathway leading to a job that pays a living wage, according to its website.
“Learning English or getting a GED is no longer sufficient to getting a good job,” said Tirrell. “You have to get credentials so we provide free access to obtaining those credentials.”
Last year, the organization was awarded more than $2.9 million over four years from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) for its programming, but is required to provide a 20 percent match in private funds annually.
Since Pathways is receiving $900,000 in state funds this fiscal year, it is required to match $180,000 by June — half of the two-year Kraft grant is for this year, reducing that required match to $130,000. Last week, the organization kicked off its fundraising efforts with a community event, according to Tirrell.
Although the organization has been an adult education provider on the North Shore for more than 40 years, it transformed a few years ago from its former incarnation of Operation Bootstrap, into starting its career pathways program, with the aim of adults getting credentials for higher paying jobs.
Today, the program is designed in a way that ELLs can learn English while receiving vocational and occupational job training simultaneously, where before, that learning was sequential. That switch has led to a faster pathway to better jobs, according to Tirrell.
“It’s hugely successful,” he said. “We’ve had 110 people go through the career pathways training that we’ve done. Ninety percent of (those) people have gotten certifications that translate into higher pay over the past two years.”
In Lynn, about a third of adults don’t have the skills to do post-secondary education and training, but 80 percent of all jobs now require training beyond high school. In addition, about a third of adults in Lynn don’t have English language proficiency, according to Tirrell.
The healthcare training program with Lynn Tech allows adults to receive credentials to become a certified nursing assistant, to work in phlebotomy and perform EKGs.
Eighteen of the 19 people who started the early childhood program through a partnership with North Shore Community College in January graduated last month and are now working as teachers in daycare centers, Tirrell said.
Pathways plans to start two more programs in January, advanced manufacturing and will collaborate with NSCC to offer a computer networking training program, he said.
