The local community’s retail and food businesses served as a classroom for several Amityville Public School District students enrolled in the Work Experience Program (WEP). For six weeks each semester, approximately a dozen high school and middle school students from the district report to food service, retail, automotive, and entertainment businesses to learn skills that will provide them with future employment alternatives.

According to Career and Employment Options representative Lori Rosado, who places the Amityville students in work internships, this type of education serves as a “transition service” into the work environment after high school graduation. She explained, “Most of these students have Individual Education Plans (IEP) goals, and our services link the students to adult services, provide the students with a set of employment goals, and connect the students to other government employment services.”

“One of the benefits to this type of education,” explained WEP career consultant Christine Junta, “is that these students will be walking into the workplace with a full portfolio of employment experience.”

Middle school and ninth and tenthgrade students enrolled in WEP work one day a week for two hours a day; eleventh and twelfth-grade students participate two days a week for two hours a day. Some of the businesses that provide work experience include Burlington Coat Factory, Pep Boys, Kohl’s, Farmingdale Multiplex, and Houlihan’s.

Shown in the photo at left, Work Experience Program (WEP) participant Manny Gomez Small from Amityville Memorial High School unloads clothes before they are placed on racks of the Burlington Coat Factory in Massapequa.

Shown in the photo at right, Amityville Memorial High School senior and Work Experience Program (WEP) participant Maria Fuentes attaches price tags on clothes at the Burlington Coat Factory in Massapequa.