College and Career Partnership Program

CAREER ACADEMIES & PATHWAYS

Career academies are small learning communities within larger high schools, usually enrolling students in grades 10-12.  Academies incorporate integrated academic and career technical education, business partnerships, mentoring, and internships.  Academy components include rigorous academics and career technical education, with a career focus, a committed team of teachers, and active business and post-secondary partnerships. 

A career pathway is a coherent sequence of rigorous academic and technical courses that prepare students for successful completion of state academic standards and support transition to more advanced post-secondary coursework related in a career area of interest.  

Many CTE high school courses are articulated with community college courses, allowing students to take articulated classes at their high schools and earn advanced placement and/or even college credit for those courses.  (Articulation refers to the process of linking two or more educational systems.)  This saves time and provides a jump-start to the college experience.  Small learning communities such as these career academies and pathways have provided a model for high school reform, and have become an important part of the current Linked Learning initiative in California.

State legislation launched the California Partnership Academies (CPAs) in 1984.  CPAs exemplify the career academy model for preparing high school students to succeed in both college and careers.

AVUHSD Career Academies:

Antelope Valley High School: Green Enterprise Academy
Highland High School: Law and Government Academy
Knight High School: Digital Design and Engineering Academy

Lancaster High School: Lancaster Academy of Multimedia Programming and Engineering
Littlerock High School: Agriculture and Environmental Science Academy
Palmdale High School: Health Careers Academy
Palmdale High School: Falcon Academy of Sustainable Technologies "FAST"