According to Fiormonti, this California Partnership Academy “is as real world as you can make it. It's a real, student-run, small business, and all PAB students demonstrate a strong sense of responsibility for the entire operation of the store.” Students assume and are held accountable for a wide range of responsibilities in the day-to-day operation of the store. These include everything from market research, profit/loss calculations, inventory control, ordering, stocking shelves, and rotating stock so it doesn't go out of date, to designing and implementing new promotions and test marketing new product ideas. Fiormonti makes sure that what students experience daily in the operation of the store is connected back to classroom learning every day.

The store carries a wide range of products that are appealing to both students and faculty including healthy drinks, entrees, and snacks, as well as school “logo wear” and PE uniforms. All food and beverages sold in the store during regular school hours have to meet the strict nutrition criteria established under SB12, which limits total calories, calories from fat, and sugar content. Because SB12 only applies to food and beverages sold during the regular school day, items that are not compliant, including hot chocolate and cappuccinos, are only sold before school.

Fiormonti says that the store generates $800–$1,000 in gross sales per day. Profits are used to support the overall operation of the academy. According to Fiormonti, “This is extremely important considering the current budget constraints in this district.” Profits also cover the costs for pathway field trips and provide scholarships for some of the 60–70% of pathway seniors who go on to some form of postsecondary education.

Perhaps what is most impressive to visitors is the high level of pride that is exhibited by all pathway students. This is reflected in everything they do from working in the store itself to cleaning up the store and the school area in its immediate vicinity after the store closes.

This is an example of a highly successful student-based enterprise that provides significant and meaningful work-based learning experiences for all of its students. According to PAB Advisory Board member Don Sowers, who is the Human Resources Manager for Bank of the Sierra, “Our bank and many other Porterville businesses would rather hire PAB student interns than college graduates, because we know PAB students will have learned and mastered all of the skills we need before they come to us.” Many pathway interns get offered jobs during the summer and after graduation. In fact, two recent PAB graduates work part time as managers of the student store.

For more information, contact Tom Fiormonti at Porterville High School.

Good news: ConnectEd is launching a tool that dramatically simplifies the curriculum planning process. We developed the new Performance-Based Curriculum Mapping Tool after watching teachers struggle with masses of index cards and flip charts listing content and performance standards for each subject area. ConnectEd's curriculum design manual outlines the steps teachers should take to plan and implement a career-focused and integrated high school curriculum. The mapping tool helps implement those steps. "We have been training teachers in Performance Mapping for the past six months and it has energized our teachers. The online tool promises to be yet another efficient tool in the process, allowing more time and efficiency in the creation of integrated curriculum," said Veronica Evans, Academic and Career Technical Education Curriculum Leader at Long Beach Unified School District.

This web-based interactive mapping tool helps teachers plan across disciplines and simplifies the process for meeting state standards. This process puts the emphasis on true student learning and defines mastery for that learning. The tool provides three pull-down menus populated with information relevant to each subject area. For English language arts, for example, the tool might offer the following:

This tool simplifies the time-intensive curriculum mapping process in various ways. Teachers can find alignment between subject areas by using content standards and performance tasks. For example, a science teacher might use the tool to access the math standards and see that “measurement conversion” would naturally align with the chemical reaction lab she plans to do on the scientific properties and reactions of medications. The math and science teachers then could convene and develop the lesson together, developing it around their pathway's health sciences industry theme.

Another benefit of using the tool is that it encourages multi-week planning, helping teachers to become more strategic about differentiating instruction for skill and motivation levels to help all students master the performance tasks. For example, after planning a four-week performance map, the teacher might see that eight students will likely struggle to meet the performance standards. She can then start interventions earlier in the unit to help ensure that those students will succeed.

The Performance-based Curriculum Mapping Tool is available at www.ConnectEdStudios.org. The beta-test version of the tool—including an online User's Guide—is available without charge to educators who register with ConnectEd Studios (also a free process). ConnectEd Studios is an online platform providing students and teachers access to integrated curriculum units, multimedia resources, project planning tools, and industry professionals to support project-based learning in schools.