ENROLLED ORIGINAL
1
A RESOLUTION
25-228
IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
July 11, 2023
To declare the existence of an emergency with respect to the need to amend, on an emergency
basis, the Youth Employment Act of 1979 to establish Middle School Career Exploration
pilot programs to provide occupational skills, academic enrichment, life skills, career
exploration, work readiness, and youth development trainings.
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That this
resolution may be cited as the “Middle School Career Exploration Pilot Emergency Declaration
Resolution of 2023”.
Sec. 2. (a) The District’s summer Out-of-School Time (“OST”), Department of Parks and
Recreation (“DPR”), and Department of Employment Services (“DOES”) programming
opportunities are robust, but not all students can or do participate. Middle schoolers may feel that
they are too old for DPR and OST programming, but they are not yet old enough to participate in
the DOES Summer Youth Employment Program. It is important that the District offer
programming that provides a broad array of extracurricular opportunities across age groups so
that students strengths and interests are engaged year-round.
(b) Middle school is a critical time for children’s exploration of and exposure to
opportunities in their broader community, and it is when youth typically first begin developing
skills that they eventually use to earn money. It is important that youth in this age group have a
broad array of hands-on experiences and opportunities to develop new and existing skills during
the summer and beyond.
(c) DOES currently offers the Middle School Exploration program to middle schoolers in
grades 6-8, but the program as currently instituted has only 3 providers and a total of 225 spots,
and participants are neither compensated nor incentivized. Given that there are approximately
17,000 middle school students enrolled in District of Columbia Public Schools and in charter
schools, an expanded pilot program is necessary to assess the impact of the current program and
the demand for a potential year-round expansion. The emergency legislation will help lay the
foundation for the opportunities necessary to create positive long-term employment outcomes
and help middle school youth in the District in the summer of 2023. The emergency legislation’s
applicability date of June 1, 2023, allows DOES to fully implement the pilot program
immediately while the permanent bill is considered by the Council. ENROLLED ORIGINAL
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Sec. 3. The Council determines that the circumstances enumerated in section 2 constitute
emergency circumstances making it necessary that the Middle School Career Exploration Pilot
Emergency Amendment Act of 2023 be adopted after a single reading.
Sec. 4. This resolution shall take effect immediately.