The Madison School Board approved the expansion of the Personalized Pathways program for the 2019-2020 school year. The Board voted 5-2 to allow for an information technology pathway to be available to students at Madison Memorial, East and LaFollette high schools.
The innovative program will allow students to pursue an array of career paths in addition to the Health Services Pathway that has been piloted in Madison high schools since 2017.
“I want to commend the racial equity aspect of Pathways,” said board member James Howard. “I look at this as a major change in our work, especially the racial aspect of it. I support Pathways wholeheartedly.”
In an annual report on the pilot to the board on November 5, school district officials said 71 percent of African-American students in the Pathways program graduated, up from 56 percent of other African-American students.
The Pathways program has enabled students to have a chance to learn skills in Health Services up to this point but now students will be able to pursue things like software development, computer science, information systems management, and other IT-related skills. It also brings students closer to realizing the goal of post-secondary education. Pathways has a partnership with the University of Wisconsin that helps groom students for college.
