Middle level Family and Consumer Sciences education is delivered through the state-mandated course, Home and Career Skills.

Home and Career Skills is a course designed to help middle level students live in a society of constant change and to improve their quality of life by preparing them to meet their present and future responsibilities as family member and community members, consumers, home managers, and wage earners. The goal is to educate early adolescents to think constructively, make sound decisions, solve problems, and manage resources.

Home and Career Skills is the vehicle through which the New York State Intermediate Level Learning Standards for Family and Consumer Sciences are delivered. It also focuses on the New York State Intermediate Level Learning Standards in Career Development and Occupational Studies. The Home and Career Skills course affords students multiple opportunities to read, write, and compute in the context of real-world situations that are relevant to early adolescents.

Home and Career Skills is organized around four process skills: communication, leadership, management, and thinking. These process skills are taught through ten content topics: community connections, career development, clothing management, consumer resource management, family/parenting, financial management, human development, interpersonal relationships, nutrition and wellness, personal environment management. Home and Career Skills process skills and content topics align with the National Learning Standards for Family and Consumer Sciences. In order for the full curriculum to be delivered learning experiences must be designed to dovetail process skills with content topics.

The Home and Career Skills course is to be taught using a hands-on experiential approach. Learning occurs in the context of real-life situations and repeated practice is encouraged. It is recommended that the course be delivered in a laboratory setting and involve a minimum of 75% hands-on instruction. The use of real-life relevant tasks, laboratories, simulations, and community involvement is an integral part of the course as is the use of research, class discussions, and group activities. Students are expected to be actively involved in learning in a participatory, supportive environment and to have the opportunity to practice and to develop the process skills as related to the content topics.