Director's Message
In 2009, Porterville Unified School District was named a recipient of a $1 million grant from the James Irvine Foundation. The grant, awarded to only six districts in California, was given to PUSD to develop a district-wide system of career-themed pathways. Since that time, PUSD has expanded its pathway options to now offer 14 “Open Choice” career-themed pathways for high school students. Showing progress in the implementation of the Linked Learning approach across the district, in 2011, the James Irvine Foundation granted PUSD an additional $1 million to continue the work of transforming education.
The Pathways Program at Porterville Unified School District provides an exciting, innovative and powerful learning environment for students. Our students have the opportunity to apply what they are learning in a project-based, “real world application” instructional program. By combining demanding career technical training with rigorous academic standards-based teaching, the goal of Student Pathways is for students to graduate college and career ready with a greater advantage of post-secondary learning options, whether college, technical, or workplace.
Through our community, state and national partnerships, PUSD is working to fulfill its mission of preparing a workforce that can meet the needs of an expanding technological knowledge-based economy. Our teachers use project-based learning as an instructional model to deliver an integrated curriculum. Due to the generosity of time and expert assistance by our local business and professional partners, students will not only learn technical and college prep skills in the classroom, but will also be prepared to demonstrate what they learn in the workplace through our Linked Learning Internship program.
We invite you to visit and experience upcoming informational sessions to learn more about the PUSD Pathways/Linked Learning Program.
Cynthia Garcia Brown
Director of Pathways