"This is a good step forward for all three counties," said Rocco DiVeronica, Chairman of the Madison County Board of Supervisors. "This project will help young people who made a bad choice and help motivate them to persevere. These are not young people who are any less able to lead productive lives than students who are still in school. They can achieve success. They just need the assistance this new effort will give them."

"Every single person in this region is a resource and an asset. These young people can succeed if we reach out to help them," said Oneida County Executive Ralph J. Eannace, Jr. "The regional partnership is one more piece of our economic development strategy to grow a top-quality workforce of the future from among the young people who live right here among us."

"The more our young people succeed, the brighter will be the future of our region," said Herkimer County Administrator James Wallace. "At a time when concern over the new Regents standards has also raised fears of increased dropouts, I salute the WIB, BOCES and everyone else involved with this effort for taking a pro-active effort to help our young people."

"This is a very unique, regional approach to this concern," said John Margo, Human Resources Director of Oneida Healthcare, who also chairs the Youth Council of the Workforce Investment Board – which will oversee the new effort. "We’re bringing together educators, the community and business people with the support of government. "

Margo said the program goes beyond existing school- or work-based programs because it will recruit regionally and support students by tailoring individualized plans to each student’s needs. "We’re going to be regional and comprehensive, but we are also going to be individualized," he said. "It’s a great project."

The effort will serve about 100 of the estimated 1,000 high school-age dropouts in the tri-county region, and is likely to expand, Margo said. It targets youth between the ages of 16 and 21 who are economically disadvantaged, deficient in basic skills and unemployed or underemployed.

Its prime goal is to return students to their home high schools, where they can receive a Regents diploma and an appropriate vocational sequence. Depending upon a student’s age and circumstances, an array of other options will be explored, from helping students earn a GED to work experience through internships and job shadowing.

The project brings together two partners with outstanding records of service to area youth, said Workforce Investment Board Executive Director John E. Holt.

Madison-Oneida BOCES, in partnership with the Herkimer County BOCES and Oneida County BOCES, will focus on recruiting young people, developing individualized plans for them, and then working with existing agencies and programs to ensure out-of-school youth get the services they need. The three BOCES will work closely with the Working Solutions One-Stop Centers located in Utica, Rome, Oneida and Herkimer.

Utica Community Action, Inc. will provide direct service through the Youth Work Skills Program, which will focus on young people in the greater Utica area, which has the heaviest concentration of out-of-school youth.

The Youth Work Skills Program is a job preparation effort modeled on a similar program offered through the New York State Department of Labor.

"We’re delighted to be part of this regional, innovative partnership," said Raymond Shanley, Chief Executive Officer of Utica Community Action Inc.

"In the world we live in, youth sometimes face incredible pressures that make them leave school, in spite of all the excellent dropout-prevention programs out schools offer. Now, we can go out and help these young people get an education and find a job that will let them take their dreams off the shelf and make them a reality," Shanley said.

"The regional and cooperative nature of this program is really what sets it apart," said Edward Shafer, District Superintendent of Madison-Oneida BOCES, which has operated a prototype project – Project CONNECT – for the past two years.

"We’ve found that we can reach these students and work with them," he said, noting that over the past two years, BOCES has helped more than 125 students get back on track. "We have assembled the resources of the WIB, our schools, our BOCES and area businesses. With a team like this, we can accomplish a lot."

"We need to take a big-picture view here," said Shafer. "We read a lot about migration out of the area. Well, these young people are not leaving. They are going to be here. It is our challenge to help them make the most they can of their lives. There is a saying out here at BOCES that ‘Everyone deserves a second chance.’ Well, this is nothing more than taking that and putting it in action. We really appreciate the support of the WIB in funding this, and we look forward to working with Utica Community Action to help young people."

Holt said the WIB is funding the project because it is a necessary investment on behalf of employers and employees.

"Young people who have left school often find that with minimal academic and occupational credentials, they are never able to achieve their full potential. Every one of those is a tragedy we want to prevent. These are not statistics we’re talking about. These are our teen-agers. The longer our young people who are out of school stay that way, the more they lag in developing the skills they need to succeed." Holt said. "The quality of a workforce in any region is increasingly becoming the prime reason for businesses to locate in a region, or expand there."

Holt cited a U.S. Commerce Department report that said higher levels of education in a workforce mean far greater productivity. That same report noted that high school graduates earn 42 percent more than those who don’t finish school and that four-year college graduates earn 150 percent more than youth who don’t complete high school.