Madison Park students get on the job training in high school before starting careers

BOSTON – A program is helping some students in Boston start their careers while they’re still in high school.

Madison Park Technical Vocational High School is sending some of the trade school graduates right to work for the city of Boston.

Jay Barbosa is happy he chose the electrical program. He’s now a street lighting mechanic for the city. The department manages about 71,000 streetlights throughout Boston.

“I fell in love with it around sophomore year, because freshman year, I was really young and I didn’t know what I was going to get into but over time it just grows on you and that’s what I’ve found that I can pursue in life,” Barbosa told WBZ-TV.

At just 17 years old, Joshua Padilla can see how all the hard work has paid off. He’s a maintenance mechanic for the city’s street lighting department.

“It’s rewarding, it makes me feel great because four years of hard work into that trade and learning code and learning how to work and how to splice and doing the correct things, made me think I could carry it on to a job. It made it a lot easier,” he told WBZ.

Both Joshua and Jay love how their jobs have impacted their lives.

“My parents actually were extremely happy for me because they knew the career I wanted and they know this is a great path I’m going towards,” Barbosa said.

“I’ve seen a lot of lights that were out before I started working here and now I have the opportunity to come in and turn them on. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right for the city,” Padilla said.

As for the Department of Public Works and Madison Park, this has been a positive collaboration, according to Michael Donaghy, the superintendent of the street lighting division.

“What we found especially with the partnership with Madison Park, is they instill not only the technical competencies that you are looking for but there is a level of professionalism that’s really remarkable,” he told WBZ.