Proposed rule change could benefit work-study programs

Current regulations prohibit students under 16 from working more than three hours in a school day. The proposed rules would let 14 and 15-year-olds work up to eight hours a day under certain circumstances.

Directors of career and technical education programs say the change will allow them to provide more opportunities for students to gain work experience and learn about career opportunities.

Among those supporting the rule change are Lyn Velle, director of career and technical education programs at the Campbell County school district in Gillette, Wyo., who hopes to expand the work experience programs at Campbell High School.

Some of the school’s career and technical education courses have an on-the-job component, where students work at a local auto shop, ranch, or other business for one 90-minute period every day. “We would like to have more students working but can’t because they’re too young,” Velle said.

She would also like to arrange for students to get work experience at the local coal mine -- at least in the non-dangerous areas -- but can’t now because youths have to be at least 18 to take the required mine safety training program, even for office jobs at the mine facility.

Steve Perry, assistant principal of the agriculture department at John Bowne High School in New York City’s borough of Queens, also supports the rule change.

The agriculture program enrolls about 500 of the school’s 3,000 students, who come from all areas of the city to learn about animals, plants, aquaculture, horticulture, or landscaping.

Student spend a summer participating in the Land Lab program, where they spend half the day in the classroom and the other half working on the school’s 3.8-acre farm.

Each student is given a garden plot, and can sell the vegetables and flowers they produce at a farm stand on the main street of Flushing. They also care for the school’s animals, including goats, alpacas, and poultry; work in the greenhouses and orchard; and raise trout, tilapia, and other fish.

Students have an opportunity to spend a summer working on a farm in upstate New York -- they get paid for their work and live with the farm family -- or complete a 300-hour paid work experience in the city, working for the parks department, zoo, animal hospitals, landscaping companies, or aquariums. To get credit, they have to submit a journal about their experiences.

Perry said allowing younger students to work longer hours will help his students complete their work-study requirements faster and allow them to earn more money for college.

The rule change was sought by the Chicago-based Cristo Rey Network, which operates 12 Catholic high schools across the nation. The schools serve mostly poor minority, inner-city populations and use a work-study program to help students pay for their tuition.

The network plans to open seven more schools this summer, said Preston Kendall, vice president for work study and administration. The organization’s goal is to have 23 schools serving 12,000 students by 2012. Private funding has accelerated the network’s growth, including a $6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last November.

Four or five students share a single job, which means each student generally works one eight-hour day once a week. The schools have a longer school day and year to accommodate the work schedules.

Students at the Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago work at entry-level office jobs in law firms, banks, advertising agencies, accounting firms, and nonprofit organizations. In addition to the monetary benefits, school officials report, the work-study program enables students to “acquire desirable job experience and marketable skills, develop a network of business contacts, gain exposure to a wide variety of career opportunities, refine a strong work ethic, and increase their self-esteem.”

The U.S. Labor Department allowed the Cristo Rey program to operate under its Work Experience and Career Exploration program. This program, aimed at helping youths at risk of dropping out stay in school, permits 14 and 15-year-olds to work up to 23 hours a week.

The proposed rules would allow school districts and private schools to seek permission from the department’s Wage and Hour division to permit 14 and 15-year-olds to work up to eight hours on a school day and up to 18 hours a week.

The youths would have to be enrolled in a college preparatory program and must receive the minimum amount of classroom instruction a year required by the state. Each participating school would have to appoint a teacher-coordinator to supervise the work-study program and make regularly scheduled visits to the work site to ensure compliance with health and safety requirements.

Not everyone supports the rule change. Children’s advocates say the rules could jeopardize decades of progress in protecting children from exploitation.

The research shows that youths who put in excessive hours on the job do not benefit educationally, while they face a higher risk of accidents and emotional distress, said Jeffrey F. Newman, president and executive director of the National Child Labor Committee. And “once you put a dent into what has been a strong protection,” he said, “you open the floodgates” for relaxing the rules in other areas.

But career and technical educators see the rule change as less about exploiting youths and more about providing them with more opportunities.

“We don’t want work to inhibit education,” Kendall said. “We have a program where work enhances education.”