The New York State Afterschool Network recently put out a white paper about the importance and value of school-community partnerships. Our longtime ally, New York State Rural Schools Association, participated in that initiative to provide a voice for the educational and community needs specific to rural school districts like the ones in our region.

Among the report’s recommendations: The state should encourage partnerships with county services, hospitals, community colleges, BOCES, or other schools. The report encouraged schools to develop and promote an education curriculum that “can be put into context and used as an effective foundation for college or career.”

At Madison-Oneida BOCES, we couldn’t agree more. For nearly 50 years, we have been working collaboratively with our member school districts, and we have been establishing and facilitating partnerships throughout our local communities.

BOCES in New York state were founded on the idea of supporting shared services between schools. In our region, we’ve expanded that idea to include long-lasting and effective partnerships with businesses, government agencies and service organizations across Madison and Oneida counties as a way to provide additional educational benefits to our area students.

For example:

-- We have agreements with 21 colleges and trade schools across the northeastern U.S. to grant college credit to students who complete our CTE programs.

-- We maintain partnerships with 167 community organizations, including schools, government agencies, companies and nonprofits, and we provided more than 300 high school students with work-based learning site placements last year.

-- We are currently working with a number of partners – including county health departments, local law enforcement, and social service agencies – on a Youth Mental Health First Aid training program, which allows us to offer no-cost training to 250 community members across Madison and Oneida counties.

-- We have long-standing partnerships with our local hospitals to offer internships and clinical rotation slots to our nursing students at both the high school and adult level, and our nationally-recognized Allied Health Partnership was designed and implemented in conjunction with Oneida Healthcare Center, which has offered us classroom space and shadowing opportunities for about two decades.

-- High school seniors in our special education program participate in work-study experiences through rewarding partnerships with 19 local businesses, nonprofits and government offices.

In September, we formed a new partnership with SUNY Polytechnic to offer interested seniors a unique option – a full-day, research-focused STEM course located on the SUNY Poly campus, with an emphasis on environmental science and nanotechnology. We’re now in the early planning stages of another school-community partnership between our component districts and area businesses to develop an advanced manufacturing program for high school students.

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