How Baltimore Schools Prepare Students for Meaningful Careers

Accord­ing to the 2025 KIDS COUNT^® Data Book, 6% of Mary­land teens are nei­ther in school nor work­ing. To help stu­dents explore paths to employ­ment and gain valu­able job skills and expe­ri­ences, Bal­ti­more City Pub­lic Schools has invest­ed in career readi­ness pro­gram­ming. With sup­port from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, City Schools is imple­ment­ing strate­gies such as the Bal­ti­more Career Coach­ing Ini­tia­tive (BCCI).

“For over five years, this career readi­ness pro­gram­ming has accom­plished trans­for­ma­tion­al work in Bal­ti­more schools,” said Sara Coop­er, direc­tor of Employ­ment, Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing at the Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“Not only are stu­dents dis­cov­er­ing and explor­ing careers that inter­est them, but they also receive crit­i­cal nav­i­ga­tion, sup­port and resources ear­ly on that will posi­tion them to suc­ceed as adults.”

What Is Career Readiness?

City Schools’ career readi­ness pro­gram­ming helps stu­dents grad­u­ate with the nec­es­sary knowl­edge, skills and cre­den­tials they need to secure jobs that pay a liv­ing wage. Through these efforts, students:

• gain career expo­sure oppor­tu­ni­ties from as ear­ly as ele­men­tary school;
• receive hands-on expe­ri­ence in labs that meet indus­try standards;
• apply their learn­ing in real-world set­tings, such as phar­ma­cies and hospitals; 
• learn and build con­nec­tions with indus­try pro­fes­sion­als; and 
• access work-based learn­ing expe­ri­ences in fields such as IT or health care.

The Bal­ti­more Career Coach­ing Initiative

BCCI is the lat­est career readi­ness part­ner­ship between the Bal­ti­more City Mayor’s Office of Employ­ment Devel­op­ment, Bal­ti­more City Pub­lic Schools and Bal­ti­more City Com­mu­ni­ty College.

“Thanks to the Blue­print for Maryland’s Future leg­is­la­tion, all Mary­land edu­ca­tion agen­cies are required to have career coach­ing ini­tia­tives that pre­pare young peo­ple for suc­cess in col­lege and the work­force,” said Coop­er. ​“Because BCCI’s three part­ners have pre­vi­ous­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed on oth­er ini­tia­tives that sup­port young peo­ple — such as Career­bound — they were able to get on the same page very quickly.”

BCCI uses a three-point approach to work with students:

1. In-class work­shops cov­er career readi­ness top­ics like devel­op­ing pro­fes­sion­al strengths and writ­ing a resume.
2. Small group sup­port and men­tor­ship help stu­dents bet­ter under­stand and pur­sue their career goals.
3. Data col­lec­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion with young peo­ple inform the design of career fairs and employ­er tours while bet­ter con­nect­ing stu­dents to intern­ships, appren­tice­ships and oth­er paid employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Addi­tion­al­ly, BCCI has embed­ded 46 career coach­es in all 115 Bal­ti­more mid­dle and high schools.

“So often, young peo­ple do not have the lux­u­ry of explor­ing what they want to do with their lives before they grad­u­ate,” said Brady Wheel­er, BCCI senior pro­gram man­ag­er. ​“These career coach­es can work one-on-one with stu­dents and help them real­ly think about their future careers and how to pur­sue them.”

Lead­ing With Data

Bal­ti­more City Pub­lic Schools’ career readi­ness strat­e­gy is informed by a data-dri­ven, mul­ti-year strate­gic plan devel­oped with sup­port from Casey grantee Project Evident.

Since its imple­men­ta­tion, City Schools has con­sis­tent­ly uti­lized data to mon­i­tor stu­dent progress and ensure stu­dents and teach­ers have the resources they need.

The career readi­ness strat­e­gy has also enabled City Schools to allo­cate mil­lions of dol­lars toward:

• improv­ing facil­i­ties and stu­dent learn­ing resources;
• embed­ding work-based learn­ing into the core cur­ricu­lum for high school­ers; and
• expand­ing career expo­sure oppor­tu­ni­ties for ele­men­tary and mid­dle school students.

“Through­out its new­ly devel­oped strate­gic plan, City Schools has uti­lized data and evi­dence to change process­es and make deci­sions that cen­ter stu­dent out­comes,” said Bi Vuong, man­ag­ing direc­tor and chief pro­gram and impact offi­cer at Project Evi­dent. ​“This strate­gic real­lo­ca­tion of resources, process improve­ments and expan­sion of work-based learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties is a reflec­tion of [its] com­mit­ment to stu­dents’ long-term suc­cess out­side the classroom.”

Dis­cov­er how Youth­Works con­nects Bal­ti­more stu­dents to jobs