Council calls hearing on youth jobs after SuccessLink school-year changes
Henry Santana says community partners were caught off guard and that a new city youth corps offers 400 jobs against a 2,000-job goal. The city says private partners are filling out the rest.
For years, SuccessLink has been how many Boston teenagers found a paid after-school job through the city. This fall the school-year program looks different, and on Oct. 21 the City Council sent a hearing order on its future to committee.
The order (docket 1966), filed by City Councilor Henry Santana, asks the administration, community partners and students to come before the Labor and Economic Development Committee. If you have a teenager looking for a school-year job, or you work at a nonprofit that hires them, this is the hearing to watch.
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What the city announced
In June the city said it would build a coalition of private and nonprofit employers to reach 2,000 school-year "learn and earn" jobs for students ages 14 to 18, roughly 10% of BPS high schoolers, starting this school year, according to a city announcement. Founding partners committed 475 jobs, including the YMCA of Greater Boston, Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and Artists for Humanity. The city said SuccessLink placed 1,722 students in school-year jobs in 2025-26.
In September, Mayor Michelle Wu said students could apply for more than 1,600 school-year jobs starting Sept. 30, Rock 92.9 reported, citing the Boston Herald. The same report said the city is relaunching the Redshirts neighborhood cleanup program, which will employ 400 young people through the Boston City Youth Corps, with City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata sponsoring its return.
What councilors said
Santana told colleagues that replacing SuccessLink with the Boston City Youth Corps "without advance notice or public process" caught the community off guard (watch at 1:44:54). He said 400 jobs falls short of the 2,000 young people were counting on, about 20% of what was promised, and that many longtime partner organizations did not learn of the change until after an Oct. 2 information session (1:45:26). He said he wants an honest conversation to address gaps in the rollout (1:45:56).
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The two accounts measure different things. Santana's 400 figure refers to the city-run youth corps; the city's 1,600-plus figure counts jobs offered through the private and nonprofit coalition. A hearing is where those numbers can be reconciled on the record.
City Councilor Julia Mejia, added as a co-sponsor, said advocates and some councilors warned during the budget process about cuts to public funding for school-year youth jobs and about transparency for the private jobs, and that those concerns have now come true (1:46:57). She said advocates had asked the council to restore SuccessLink's public funding through its budget amendments (1:47:58). City Councilor Brian Worrell, added as the third co-sponsor, said he wants a status update (1:49:00).
What our records show
Youth jobs came up repeatedly during the spring budget. On June 10, councilors described amendments that added money for youth jobs on top of private funding the city had secured (June 10 meeting). On June 24, when the council took its final budget votes, Mejia said she voted against the budget because it did not go far enough, and named youth jobs as one reason (June 24 meeting, 2:34:12). The Boston Globe reported that day that the council accepted Wu's amended $4.9 billion budget.
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The council's record lists 12 sponsors on the new hearing order; only City Councilor Sharon Durkan is not listed. It went to the Labor and Economic Development Committee, which Worrell chairs.
What's next
No hearing date has been posted. When it is, the city's public notices page will list it, and our meetings page will carry the video and transcript afterward. Applications for school-year jobs go through the city's futureBOS hub.