PEABODY — Astound, an internet provider, announced on Monday the launch of its 2026 paid internship program in partnership with Peabody Veterans Memorial High School’s Career Technical Education program.
This is the fifth year the one-of-a-kind collaboration will provide students direct access to real-world fiber-optic training and career experience.
“Reaching the fifth year of this partnership is a meaningful milestone for Astound and for Peabody Veterans Memorial High School,” said Mark Bentley, manager of Switch/Transport at Astound in Massachusetts. “What began as a conversation about exposing students to fiber-optic technology has grown into a sustained program that gives young people real skills, real experience, and a real look at what careers in this field can offer.”
Four students from the Electronics/Fiber Optics program at PVMHS will take on the five-week internship, which runs through May 22, working alongside Astound professionals across technical operations, engineering, construction, and broadband field functions.
The program will give students a hands-on introduction to the technology, teamwork, and problem-solving required to build and maintain modern communications networks.
This year, the intern experience has been expanded to include added time with engineering and construction teams and experience with emerging technologies such as 400-gig circuits and fiber-to-the-home.
This partnership between PVMHS and Astound began in 2020 when Dale Larocque, an instructor in PVMHS’s CTE program, invited Astound representatives to speak with students about fiber-optic technology. That conversation led to a deeper collaboration, with Astound helping the school develop a dedicated fiber-optics teaching lab and eventually launching a paid internship program for students.
“The program continues to show what is possible when education and industry work together in a focused, practical way,” said PVMHS Principal Brooke Randall. “They are seeing how those skills apply in the real world, alongside professionals who are helping shape the communications networks people rely on every day.”
