Jóvenes Adelante 2025-26: Students Step Into Their Futures With Confidence
Jóvenes Adelante is MEDA’s program for 11th and 12th graders at the Mission District’s John O’Connell High School. Funded by a grant from the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families (DCYF), it gets students ready for life after graduation by building two kinds of readiness side by side. The first is career readiness. Students explore careers through one of the three pathways established at the school: Building and Construction Trades, Entrepreneurship and Culinary Arts, or Public Service. Seniors then put what they’ve learned to work in an 8 to 10 week paid internship with a local employer. The second is financial readiness. Throughout the program, students learn to manage money and plan for a stable future, so they’re prepared not only to earn a paycheck but to make it go further. In the 2025-26 school year, Jóvenes Adelante served 157 students: 74 seniors and 83 juniors.
At the end of each school year, we ask a simple question: is it working? This year, MEDA’s Data, Analysis, and Planning team took a close look at the 2025-26 program. They drew on four surveys of students, interns, and host site supervisors. More than 100 of those 157 students shared their perspectives. Here’s what we learned.
Seniors are more confident and more prepared
The program’s core goal is to help students make better financial decisions and plan their next steps after graduation. The results show it’s working, especially for seniors.
Among 12th graders:
• 83% have a clear sense of their steps after graduation
• 83% feel more confident handling money and building a stable future
• 79% connected what they’re doing now to their long-term goals
Among 11th graders:
• 61% have a clear sense of their steps after graduation
• 67% feel more confident handling money and building a stable future
• 61% connected what they’re doing now to their long-term goals
Most 11th graders aren’t yet focused on careers or jobs after high school, so the program’s benefits can feel less immediate. Still, juniors see the value. Roughly nine in ten students across both grades found the program useful and said they’d recommend it to a friend. Many juniors told us they’re motivated by what’s ahead in senior year, especially the internship.
Staff are showing up for students
Strong programs are built on strong relationships, and our students noticed. When we asked about their experience with staff, students reported:
- said interns adjusted well to guidance 79%
- said interns communicated effectively 69%
- said interns worked independently 69%
- said interns sought out extra learning 64%
- said interns had the technical knowledge they needed 64%
What students want more of
Students were generous with their feedback, and their requests were clear. They want more hands-on learning. As one student put it, “Have more hand on activities than paperwork.” They want workshops on scholarships, financial aid, and college life. And they’d like access to lesson slides so they can review the material later.
What they valued most was learning that felt real. Students named “real life example activities” and “learning about things that can help me when I’m an adult and out of high school” among their favorite parts of the program.
Where we go from here
This evaluation confirms that Jóvenes Adelante is meeting its goals. Students are graduating with a stronger sense of career purpose, more confidence in their financial and professional futures, and clearer life goals. That held true across all three career pathways. It also gave us a roadmap for doing better, and we’re acting on it in three areas:
In the classroom, we’re updating lessons to reflect student feedback. We’re adding more hands-on activities and more one-on-one time with staff, so students feel heard and understood beyond the walls of the program.
For internships, we’ll work with host sites to set up student projects before the start date. We’ll also schedule mid-point check-ins to catch gaps early and track progress along the way.
Finally, we’ve streamlined our student and host site surveys to make sharing feedback faster and easier.
To every student, family, teacher, and host site partner who took part this year: thank you. Your honesty makes this program stronger. We can’t wait to see where the next class of Jóvenes Adelante takes us.
Jóvenes Adelante team
Mariana Dempsey-López
Ashley Ramos
Jacqueline Yañez Martínez
