Keith Doucette, left, who teaches technology education at East Greenwich High School, works with network specialist Michael Restante at Cox Communications in a program that melds a teacher’s expertise with a business sector job.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

WEST WARWICK — Businesses, unlike many schools, don’t shut down for the summer.

It’s the first lesson five Rhode Island teachers learned this summer as part of a pilot program coordinated by the governor’s PK-16 Council and the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation.

The program allows teachers to use their math, science and technology skills at businesses around the state. The intent is to give teachers real-world experiences they can bring back to the classroom, with the expectation they can inspire students who are studying subjects that are the building blocks for good-paying technical careers.

The program — known as Leadership Initiatives for Teaching and Technology (LIFT2) — is modeled after two successful, externship programs, one in California’s San Francisco Bay area and the other in Massachusetts.

“We need to build a 21st century work force,” said Saul Kaplan, the EDC’s director. “This is a very innovative idea. Think of the reach we can have by having the teacher be [an] intern.”

Four companies signed on for the pilot program in Rhode Island: Cox Communications, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, Rite-Solutions and Teknor Apex. Together, they are employing five teachers: three from Portsmouth and one each from East Greenwich and Pawtucket.

“This was kind of a natural fit” for Cox Communications, said Paul Cronin, vice president/regional manager for the company. “We’ve been a long supporter of internships in general.”

Bringing in teachers, instead of high school or college students, was an easy choice, said Cronin, who is a member of the state’s Economic Policy Council.

An educated work force, he said, underpins the long-term sustainability of the state’s economy.

The five teachers were chosen this year from a pool of applicants for the positions and are currently winding down their work projects, which stretched from six to eight weeks. The teachers worked full-time and were assigned projects within the companies designed to give them practical industry experience. The teachers received stipends through the EDC during the program.

At Cox, supervisors tailored tasks to the expertise of Keith Doucette — a technology teacher at East Greenwich High School, and Jennifer Sawyer, a mathematics and computer networking teacher at Shea High School in Pawtucket. Neither had worked outside of teaching since their college graduations.

“What jumped out of Keith’s résumé were some of the design tools he had,” said Jackie Boudreau, director of regional and system operations centers for Cox Communications in West Warwick.

Boudreau helped craft a seven-week program that showed Doucette the various facets of the telecommunication company’s network group, including design, construction, maintenance and operations.

“She had everything well-structured; I got to see the entire operation,” Doucette said. “To be able to see how a company operates is an eye-opening experience.”

He also found academic theories right in front of himself, Doucette said, as when a field maintenance job employed the use of 181-year-old scientific principle known as Ohm’s Law.

“You talk about it all the time, but this is how it’s really used,” he said.

It’s one of many small experiences he expects to relate to his students.

“You need to make it real for them,” he said.

One reality of the workplace is that engineering and technology workers are dependent on one another.

“It isn’t just sitting behind a desk — there’s a lot of teamwork involved,” said Sawyer, the Pawtucket technology teacher.

Another, she said, is that not all high-skilled work is being sent overseas.

“There are actually a lot of jobs that have to stay in this country,” she said.

The idea now is to bring their students to that realization so they’ll embrace technical studies and be prepared for the job market.

“The telecommunications business that we’re in increases in complexity every year,” Cronin said. “We’re asking more of our employees going forward.”

While a formal review of this summer’s program won’t be complete until later this year, the participants already have spoken highly enough about the externship pilot that the EDC wants to expand the program next summer to include more teachers and more businesses.

“I was a little hesitant to give up my summer [but] it was a pleasant experience,” Doucette said.

pgrimald@projo.com