Oakland Health Career Pathways: Resource Study
Prepared for SRI International in 2019
SRI International contracted with Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, Inc. (APA) to examine the costs of implementing health career pathways in Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) as part of SRI’s larger study of health pathway implementation and outcomes. The Oakland Health Pathways Project (OHPP) is a joint initiative of OUSD, the Alameda Health System, and the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency. The initiative is designed to improve educational and long-term employment outcomes for youth of color in Oakland (Alameda County), California, while expanding and diversifying the local health care workforce. OHPP began in 2014 with funding from The Atlantic Philanthropies, a limited-life foundation. There are seven OHPP heath pathways in OUSD.
The OHPP applies the district’s existing Linked Learning approach to its health career pathways. The Linked Learning approach was first implemented in OUSD in 2009. At the time, The James Irvine Foundation funded the California Linked Learning District Initiative in nine districts, including OUSD. The Linked Learning approach combines rigorous academics, career and technical education courses in sequence, integrated real-world experience, and comprehensive student supports to meet the needs of all students to ensure equity of access and opportunity. Additionally, cohorts of pathway students move through their course sequences together, allowing for integrated, cross-discipline projects and work-based learning experiences specific to the industry theme of the pathway.
The primary purpose of this cost study was to determine the resources necessary to implement health career pathways in OUSD at the school and district levels. This cost study was focused on costs incurred by OUSD and did not capture any costs incurred by industry partners or any in-kind resources they provide to the district. The secondary goals of this cost study were to determine how these pathways are currently sustained, how they will be sustained in the future, and what funds are used to help implement these pathways. Further, this report is intended to help other communities better understand the potential costs of implementing health career pathways. It is designed not to be a howto guide, but instead to help school districts plan for the associated costs. APA interviewed district staff members who support health pathways and key staff members at four OUSD high schools that have health pathways to understand the resources—personnel and non-personnel—needed for implementing specific program tasks. Once the personnel resources required to complete implementation tasks were identified, APA then applied OUSD salaries and benefits to the personnel figures. These personnel costs were then combined with non-personnel costs to produce total implementation costs for each school and the district.
The cost study found a baseline school-level cost of $1,575 per student combined with the district per student figure of $416, for a total baseline ongoing cost of about $2,000 per student per year. This figure would vary based on the unique circumstances of another school or district, such as cost of living, ability to have economies of scale due to the size of the district or number of pathways, or underlying level of resources and existing staffing. Additional one-time and start-up costs—at both the district and school levels—would also be incurred by a district beginning health pathways.
OUSD pathway staff also provided the following additional recommendations on implementation as lessons learned for districts new to pathways: district and school leadership need to fully support pathways; schools need to be structured to offer an eight-period day (or similarly staffed block schedule) that includes student cohort course progression, credit recovery, internship opportunities, and teacher collaboration; staff need to be aligned, and specific when feasible, to each pathway; workbased learning opportunities need to be integrated into and aligned with each pathway; and equipped facilities need to be provided for each pathway, and when feasible space should be contiguous.