Building bridges with Tech Prep at Manassas Campus

"Building Bridges With Tech Prep At Manassas Campus" is a doctoral project which researches, designs, and documents Tech Prep educational linkages ("bridges"). The seamless transition from high school to the community college is the linkage that has received focused attention since federal funding was provided to implement Tech Prep in July 1991. The researcher documents, as a baseline, the efforts needed to develop that seamless transition for a building trades occupation--carpentry.;A newly designed bridge between Virginia's 342 registered apprenticeship programs and Tech Prep's Associate In Applied Science Degree is examined and documented. The researcher describes how an apprentice or journeyman carpenter crosses that bridge to one of the Commonwealth's twenty-three community colleges.;An educational pathway for AAS degree graduates, from the community college to the four-year institution, is also designed and documented. This linkage is completed as college administrators recognize the academic rigor in Tech Prep programs and aggressively articulate the necessary bridge courses of instruction.;The overall framework for the doctoral project is a focus on Manassas Campus of Northern Virginia Community College within the State of Virginia. Manassas Campus was selected because of successful program implementation within its regional consortium known as Technology Plus "Kindergarten through community college plus X." Tech Plus: K-14+X consortium members believe that the best solution to long-range success is a comprehensive program which prepares students, beginning in kindergarten, with the concepts of technology plus related mathematics, science, and communications.