 Now being recorded. I would also ask that you please mute your phone lines. I know the screen says that all lines are muted but we're not able to mute everyone's phone lines depending on how they called it. So please mute your phone lines by either hitting star six or hitting the mute button on your phone. This will allow us to eliminate the background noise and have the presenters heard by all. You'll also notice on the screen that we're using a chat feature for everyone. That's where we'd like to ask you to put your questions that you might have with the presenters. We may not be able to get to all the questions in our webinar today, either on the presentation or in the Q&A at the end, but we will pull all questions from the chat box, answer them and send them out to everyone after the webinar. As I mentioned earlier, we are recording the webinar and it will be archived. There are links here for you so you can find the PowerPoint in the webinar recording, both from the ARC and our partner. And if you're interested in learning more about Tennessee's work-based learning, we've also provided to you with a link to that. Before we get started, I'd just like to briefly give you an overview of the Appalachia Regional Comprehensive Center or the ARC. Our mission is to design initiatives in partnership with our four states, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. And the initiative has improved educational outcomes for students, close achievement gaps, and enhanced instructional quality. A key area that we work in is college and career ready standards and aligned high quality assessments for our students. Today marks the second webinar in our series on CCD in partnership with the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium. And I'd like to now introduce Andrea Zimmerman. Andrea? Thanks so much, Kimberly. And before I go on, I just want to remind folks it's possible to mute your phones with a little bit of background noise. If you're calling from a 717 member, it seems like you're still not quite muted. But thank you so much, Kimberly. And I also want to thank our Tennessee colleagues who joined today for this webinar because here at NASA CTECH, we represent the state level leaders who oversee all career technical education programs and policies for secondary, post-secondary education in the workforce. And we support an innovative, high quality CTE system through leadership, advocacy, and partnerships with organizations such as the ARC and webinars like this. And, you know, work-based learning, particularly at the K-12 level, has been generating a lot of attention nationally and just a lot of conversation nationally at the state levels and the local levels about how to bring relevancy to a student's classroom learning. And while much of this work can be done at the local level, there is a role for the state and the state's role in work-based learning, particularly as it considers how work-based learning fits into career pathways and programs of study. And so that's why here at NASA CTECH, we are going to be releasing a series of case studies, taking a closer look at exactly that, the state's role in work-based learning. And that is going to be released starting next week. And that first case study is going to be focusing on the topic of today's webinar and really taking a closer look at what Tennessee has done to set a statewide vision for work-based learning, as well as offering key questions and considerations for leaders and policymakers, wishing to take another look at work-based learning in their states. And so with that, I would like to hand it off to Dr. Daniel Mezra, Assistant Commissioner of Career Technical Education in Tennessee, and she will introduce the rest of today's presenters. Daniel? Great, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be able to spotlight our work here in the state of Tennessee. And I just really want to give, again, an appreciation to the ARC and to the NASA Association of State Directors of CTE for this opportunity today. Joining me will be Heather Justice, who is the Executive Director for the Office of CTE within the Department of Education, and she will carry the bulk of the presentation today. And joining us also, though, will be our CTE coordinator out of Rutherford County, one of our counties in the state of Tennessee, and that's Tyra Pilgrim. And she will be spotlighting from a local perspective the rollout of our new work-based learning model that, as of this school year, is statewide rollout. So if you were to go to the next slide, the objective for this presentation today is that what we hope to really accomplish is that one, that everyone will get to have a better understanding of our vision of work-based learning here in the state, how we are looking at not only evaluation, but then ultimately outcome. So what would be success and how is that defined? And then, again, lastly, what does this look like at that local level? What is a school district or how is a school district approaching our model, and then how has that been translating into student success at that local level? So without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and turn this over to Heather Justice, who will carry us on. Thanks, Danielle. So this is Heather Justice, and I'm actually going to talk through kind of our vision in Tennessee for what work-based learning can be and should be. And to do that, we're really going to start with the landscape of Tennessee. And so when we started the journey to improve our work-based learning and revamp it, it was really based on our landscape, knowing that the majority of jobs will require some form of post-secondary training, and knowing that our state, as you can see on this slide, had a way to go to match workforce needs. And so growing our workforce really begins with secondary education and those robust work-based learning experiences that we can present. And so the only way we'll get to meeting those needs of 55 to 55 percent having some form of post-secondary training is actually to begin in secondary education, and we think that work-based learning is a strong tie there. We'll just kind of have one more reminder for people who have called in to please mute their phones. We're getting a little bit of feedback on the line right now. So as part of this revamp as we kind of walked through, one of the first things that we looked at was actually a survey done by the Brookings Institute. And the survey was designed to measure millennial preparedness. And what it actually measures here and demonstrates on this slide is the disconnect between what high school and college students define as prepared for the world of work versus what employers actually define as prepared. And so here you can see specifically inverse relations between the definition of preparedness where work ethic, adaptability, maturity, and attitude are important to employers, as opposed to at the bottom of the slide you see kind of that direct inverse application. So for students and high school students, 19 percent of high school students and 15 percent of college students there at the bottom of the slide, define preparedness for the workforces being prepared in general. Whereas you have on the top those very specific definitions of preparedness defined by work ethic, adaptability, etc., being the majority of where business decision makers and corporate recruiters find themselves. So again, this kind of demonstrated the lack between high school and college students and what they define to be workforce-ready versus what business decision makers and corporate recruiters actually define to be college workforce-ready. Heather, this is Kimberly. I'm sorry to interrupt you. But I just want to take a moment to make sure that everyone understands we cannot mute all phone lines. If you would please mute your own phone line, either hit star six or hit the mute line. We're getting a lot of feedback and we're having problems hearing the presenter. Thank you again for taking a moment to please mute your phone line. I'm sorry, Heather, please continue. Sure. So in looking at the gap in definition of this general preparedness versus specific preparedness, we really kind of wanted to focus in on this larger idea. And so what should work-based learning look like then? And really if we're trying to get to this point of having them understand what preparedness really looks like, exposing students early on through engaging activities and experiences within work-based learning is that way. And so really it kind of boils down to these three bullets on the slide to talk through the vision for work-based learning. And one is prepared, that every student in Tennessee will prepare for future education. So post-secondary training, post-secondary education, beginning by exploring careers and understanding what that looks like early on and then continuing that through the actual hands-on application of these experiences. The second piece is really supplying the pipeline with a skilled workforce. And so how do we make sure to connect to growing industries within our communities and actually making sure that there's some sort of connection between what we're exposing them to in secondary and what they'll be experiencing in the workforce. And the third being collaboration with stakeholders. And so this won't work if it's just one teacher with a couple of students trying to do this on their own, but rather industry, communities, families, counselors all have to be involved in this process to really ensure that this is a robust experience for our students. So how do you take that vision and actually turn it into a model? And so on this slide, what you'll actually see is progressive exposure and learning from K to J. And what that means is beginning in kindergarten and continuing all the way through into the job. So K to J is what we kind of have termed as. And you see on this slide what we really identify as a work-based learning continuum. Starting with those on the left side of this slide those exploration activities in early grades and that's really important. Explorations such as industry and career awareness that then as you progress through that continuum into your middle school and then into your high school, that immersion should be more career prep and career training. And so you'll see how we've kind of labeled those credit-bearing or capstone experiences. So a little bit more on what actually determines a capstone experience and what does a quality capstone experience look like. When we talk about immersion activities like career prep and self-directed and then demonstrated via a portfolio. And so when we say cumulative, it's that it is representative or a continuation of prior learning. Not just an instance where a student participates in work-based learning solely to go participate in a job that has no connection to what they've been studying in high school, but that it really is an extension of what that student has learned and then how they're actually applying it within the world of work. Self-directed meaning that the student is the driver. And so you can see here they're guiding their own experiences and they're expressing their own learning. Kind of using those critical thinking and problem-solving skills along the way. And then lastly, if this truly is a robust work-based learning experience and a capstone, then you're going to want a demonstration. What is the evidence that the student is actually learning and immersed in this information? And so that portfolio can then take shape to be that evidence and the demonstration of that knowledge and skills that the student is applying. So moving from our vision and what that model looks like to ensuring success, we had a couple of steps to take. And so what we really did was started through an assessment of what work-based learning had been in the past. There were several different stigmas attached to it. And so we wanted to know what is work-based learning to you, what works and what doesn't work in the model that it had been in Tennessee. And so there you can see in the first part of this slide we had surveys and focus groups, 437 survey response from CTE directors, counselors, work-based learning coordinators, who are individuals who actually oversee the placement of students in work-based learning. And we had 225 focus group participants, including Mormon 75 industry partners. So here we actually went around the state and convened different stakeholders to get their feedback. What did they think a robust work-based learning experience was and what were their frustrations with the current system? So after that, we really moved into the development phase of new policies and standards. We revised our state board policies and rules. We also revised what we have now as a work-based learning policy manual and then developed a more robust set of work-based learning course standards. So if this truly is a credit-bearing course, then what are those standards, those knowledge and skills that we want our students to be held accountable for? And then from there, what we wanted to do was we wanted to pilot this before implementing. And so you'll hear Tyra Pilgrim from Rutherford talk more about that here in a minute on what that looked like, but we really went out and sought a variety of different districts to pilot this new work-based learning model for us. And so you can see there, Anderson County, Clarksville, Montgomery, Gibson Special, Moore, and Rutherford, and why those were selected was because they were each in different grand divisions of our state so that we had representation statewide and we also had representation from urban, rural, suburban, et cetera. And that was really important to us in the pilot to make sure that this was not a one-size-fits-all model but there was adaptability and flexibility within. The most important piece of this was as we completed the pilot and the pilot's participants had feedback and they were adjustments made is that we then provided really robust professional development to those who were actually going to be implementing this in the next school year. And so as you're looking through this professional development, we established a work-based learning leadership council of expert trainers and practitioners to assist us in this in each region of the state. We actually went through and did certification training in every grand division of the state utilizing our work-based learning leadership council members to help train those teachers on these new work-based learning policies. What does this continuum look like? What does this model look like in a classroom? And then we went one step further and said it's not enough to train everybody once but how do we provide an ongoing system of support for work-based learning? And so we established regional professional learning communities specifically around work-based learning to promote that continuous improvement in every region. And those work-based learning professional learning communities are led by our work-based learning leadership council members along with Tennessee Department of Education staff. And then lastly, creating those work-based learning resources. So making sure that we had an implementation guide and a robust toolbox. So how do you have those conversations with industry? How do you look at placing students with an industry that's aligned to their prior learning and providing those tools and resources? One of the most important ones being a 21st century skill checklist. So how do you look at how you're building those 21st century and employability skills from the front end and then continuing that growth through the end of that work-based learning experience for those students? So as we're looking and I do see that we have a question and I'm going to make sure that we get to all those questions here in a minute. But I want to make sure that I give Tyra some ample time to talk through this from a district perspective. When we looked at redoing our policies, our policy guide as we mentioned is one of our resources we really wanted to focus on that student-centered piece. And so that student-centered piece started with rigorous learning expectations. So the vision of those course standards and what that looks like from an actual classroom and school perspective in terms of student placement, providing that local accountability and flexibility, which you kind of heard me talk about earlier, in the coordination and planning of those work-based learning experiences, and then an actual Pathways Tennessee approach to regional alignment. And what that actually means is that we're not offering experiences with an industry where industries don't exist because we know one, that makes the placement of students incredibly difficult, but that if a student truly is being prepared for the workforce then what are those regional opportunities that we have to connect that student to that world of work? So what does this look like when we really dig into adaptability and flexibility? One of the biggest things that this does actually where we focused a lot of our attention in this revision was the oversight of work-based learning in the classroom. And so in this example we call boots on the ground in the old way you had an automotive teacher and these students actually had to be specifically assigned to a teacher who taught that specific content. So if you wanted to offer work-based learning they had to specifically be assigned to the automotive teacher and then the automotive teacher would then hold that placement for the students and have that responsibility for those students. And you maybe had two students who were going to actually participate in a work-based learning experience within automotive. The same for information technology maybe three students who wanted to participate in a very IT focused work-based learning experience and that IT teacher would have to oversee those three students. Same with engineering and then same actually in general education courses. What we actually decided here was this caused a lot of scheduling issues for our high schools. And so if you had three teachers who were overseeing a very small amount of students they had to have a whole class period for at least at the end of the day to go and be able to go and view these students in the workplace. So checking in on these placements ensuring that these were high quality. And what we saw was one that causes a human capital issue and a big scheduling issue. And so what we actually did with our work-based learning career practicum which is what we call our work-based learning course. So when we talked about revising our course standards we called this our work-based learning career practicum. We made the work-based learning coordinator able to oversee all of those placements. So instead of an individual teacher having to oversee those placements what you actually have here is one work-based learning coordinator who facilitates all of the work-based learning logistics and reflection including the majority of any class time that actually happens. They can also oversee general education placements so say you have students who are really interested who are English students who are really interested in journalism and they want to get them into a more work-based learning experience in journalism and broadcasting then those students could also be overseen by the same work-based learning coordinator. The important part here though is that this is a relationship between the work-based learning coordinator and that teacher who oversees that content within the classroom. So the students who are in an automotive experience took automotive coursework. The students who are in the engineering experience took engineering coursework. That work-based learning coordinator has to coordinate with those teachers specifically for safety training, subject expertise and in a lot of instances possibly relationships within industry and so when we talk about adaptability and flexibility this is really what we're talking about in terms of how do you oversee students and make this an easier process for districts to be able to schedule and for students to be able to have different robust experiences. So all of these students on this slide would be in the same work-based learning coordinator classroom but they would all have very different placements and different kind of differentiation for those work-based learning experiences. So before I turn it over to Tyra to really go into the district perspective, kind of a few things from our pilot. What we tried to focus on here as we revamped work-based learning really was resources shifting not expanding to ensure sustainability. So making sure like we did with our work-based learning coordinator that we're shifting those resources to make sure that this is a sustainable project. The actual dedicated work-based learning coordinator centralizes processes for efficiency and then you're requiring some in-class time and some reflection time which will improve quality. In terms of scheduling we wanted to make sure that you could provide time for quality, proper monitoring, the length and frequency of visits matter and you'll see those all in our policy guide and that this could work not just on a block schedule or a traditional schedule but that this could work across different school schedules and we actually tested that in our pilot with different school schedules. Liability, being a minor doesn't mean near barriers and we think that's one of the biggest myths versus fact is a lot of times industry states that they can't have students there because they're not 18 and in most instances that's just not true and so they were a lot of myth-busting that we had to do along the way to specifically talk about liability for industries and facing students. Workers' conversation applies to all workers regardless of age that kind of goes again to defeat that myth of the 18 barrier and then companies carrying accident insurance which applies to non-employees and high-risk accident insurance already covers sports so this could possibly be an option for work-based learning as well. So again in keeping with that adaptability and flexibility for districts and for schools of liability that you can use to work through these barriers that may arise. And then transportation time of day will matter by industry. School-based experiences can be powerful and allow for scaling so maybe that placement is actually in a school-based enterprise and not out in a district. And then for districts that they're not obligated to provide transportation. In some instances it's completely okay that that student actually has their transportation to and from. And again that does go back to the liability question of allowing for that flexibility of a district to implement this in the manner that they can best do that. And so with that I'm actually going to turn it over to Tyra Pilgrim who's going to talk about how they actually implemented this model in our pilot program. Thank you Heather. This is Tyra Pilgrim with Rutherford County Schools and our vision for this program is for all students to gain the skills required to be effective and productive employees in our Rutherford County workforce. And we, the our practical approach that we took we had implemented the old co-op which I'm sure all of you are familiar with and we had been doing that for years and I was actually a classroom teacher and was a work-based learning coordinator for that entire time. So you know it was good but it just needed something more and so whenever this opportunity came around we jumped on board for sure because we saw that it could be better. And so the priorities and vision for Rutherford County Schools Work-based Learning is that it was rigorous and relevant because we were getting employers that were calling us before they were putting their ads in the paper or online because of the caliber of our students that we were sending. And so we knew that we were doing some things well but we knew that we could probably do it even better. And so you know as easy as training our work-based learning coordinators and supervising placements the work-based learning to become a work-based learning coordinator there's a two-day training that the teachers have to go through and there's like some you know pre-work and post-work that they do and then we have you know other regional trainings that they do but in Rutherford County we made sure that all of our programs are aligned with the new requirements. And so the teachers came up with using the requirements of the State Department. They came up with pacing guides or kind of like the scope and sequence and their programs are using it. So what this did is it made it a meaningful learning experience for our students, teachers, and our industry partners because we can't forget them sometimes they are forgotten. But the approach that we took is that again all of our coordinators have been trained using the new strategies and requirements. And so in addition to what is required of them from the State Department we also have monthly professional learning community meetings for them to get together to where they can plan and they can say hey you know what I'm having this problem with this kid or we've done this thing really good you know and so they share which is what a PLC is about. And so we have required that they have a month for that. And then the teachers and I meet with our industry partners in the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce to show the rigor and relevance and to get more places of employment on board. And so we have been very fortunate in you know once the word gets out there so many people are wanting to help us out. We also have implemented an application process for our students because it is not just a you know oh I want to get out of class or out of school early anymore they have you know requirements that they have to do. And so the application process that we have is that they have two teacher recommendations one their CTE teacher and one of a general ed teacher they have to have low absenteeism low tardies you know just some of those things that are in the work world that we know that are very important that employers you know they definitely have to have. And so in the application process they also have interviews with the teacher that will be their work based learning coordinator. And so by having these things in place it has you know kept up the integrity of the program. And because it is a reflection of their school, the teacher, the school district you know I mean so we want to make sure that we have the right kids in the right place. That doesn't mean they have to have the highest grade in the world it just means that they have to you know make sure that they are doing what they need to be doing at a you know at the school level. We also make sure that the teacher checks their progress in school to where if they're failing a class they're on probation if they fail two classes they're out of the co-op or the work based learning program because they need to focus on school rather than you know leaving. So you know that's kind of the things some of the things that happen with application process. Now when it comes to the actual you know what do they do each week. We have the students we require that the students are in actual in their classroom with their work based learning coordinator one class period a week. And what that does is Heather said before you know they have auto teachers, IT teachers, you know bag teachers, all this. And so the work based learning coordinator the problem that we were having before we implemented this is they would never see the kids unless they were on the job site and so that relationship was not built. And so now with them being in a class period with the work based learning coordinator every week that allows the relationship to build. So they work on their portfolio they have the way we have it here is we have it broken down into four modules because we're on nine week sessions. And so you know like module one could be about safety and about the career possibilities you know writing resume all of these things and so my teachers have come up with this and you know so that's something that they work on during that class period. Students also keep a daily work log of hours and pay throughout the school year. So you know unfortunately we tell them that paperwork is life and so they need to go ahead and get ready for it. So they have to bring in their paycheck subs and you know I don't know how many times I've had teachers tell me that they have found where the their student has been underpaid for some reason or another and so you know they always like getting all of their money and it was just truly a glitch in their system. But we also teach them as a part of this the importance of soft skills, interviewing skills, resume skills and communication skills because a lot of our employers were saying that the kids you know all they do is they want to be on that cell phone they're always looking down. So those are the type of things that in that class time the teachers are addressing so we can better prepare our students for the workforce. Some of our district strengths that we have we have multiple opportunities for employment. We're one of the fastest growing counties in the state of Tennessee and we just keep growing and growing and we'll probably end up having to put in another high school next year or two. So it's just there's we're really growing so that is awesome. Then we also have a stellar reputation of students over the years. So like I said we have had students or employers that called us first. Now these students that have been placed in this program even before it changed you know they're still with that company. So I had a guy who you know he started as a bagger at Kroger and now he's gone through college and he's working in their IT department in their you know in their Tennessee headquarters. And so it's you know just showing that connection of you know what this stuff is really important and it can be a career. The teachers again are thoroughly trained in the process and know that the expectations are high for them and the students. So we're not only just putting this on the students we are also holding the teachers accountable for the high expectations. And then we have full support of our programs from our superintendent and our school board which is very very important. They see the rigor and the relevance of training our students to succeed in the work world. And so we are very fortunate that we have the full support of our school board and they are always asking me is what can we do? Is there anything else we can do? How can we help? Which is very exciting thing to happen. Then the Redford County Chamber of Commerce Workforce Development also supports and assists in finding placement opportunities. So they are a big player in what we do as well because of the connection that they have with the business. And so we have their backing whenever we go into a business and say hey will you take a student in your program you know in your company because if you know let's say that they were in a marketing and a business program of study. They will have had three years of a business marketing program to where whenever they get to that fourth year they could do a workplace learning and actually go into the business. And so they are able to use the skills that they've learned those three years and use it for that business. So we are very excited about this and if you guys have any more questions I'll be definitely happy to help you to do what I can. So I'm going to pass it on to Heather for her to wrap it up. Thanks Tyra. So a couple of lessons learned and I really did want to hit here because I think I saw one question specifically around you know it sounds like this course can be very general and how do you hit you know that industry specific content and that differentiation and that's really here where we talk about it has to be student centered. So the first thing under here is that it has to align to the student selected area of elective focus. Truly this is a huge shift where before it was kind of that class release period and Tyra mentioned this the release period for them to go work at the fast food restaurant which was a job that they already had and so they were using this time to actually just give the students time to go to jobs where they already had and those jobs were not connected to that learning that they had experienced within a robust career and technical education program of study. And so the key here is the placement absolutely has to be aligned to the student's area of elective focus. Whatever that career cluster is in and that's the key to continuing that learning. That differentiation exists at the classroom level where the work based learning coordinator is making sure that those placements truly do reflect the prior learning in the elective focus. And so that kind of goes along with the second part there, supporting students long term goals and interests. You want to make sure that we're exposing them to what they're ready to do. This is very similar to health science where students are actually going out and doing clinical internships those are all a part of a robust work based learning experience. And then producing a portfolio of evidence of employability skills and so we're really not going to go back into one of the first slides where we talked about Tennessee's landscape and improving the ability of our workforce to have a credential. That won't happen unless we're working with our industry partners to ensure that there's evidence of these students and that they're gaining those really critical employability skills which is what we know when we talk to industry they're craving. The second piece here is that work based learning must be educators supported and so requiring regular reflection time to supplement work experience to meet core standards. So as the students are progressing through that do they actually have time to go back and reflect and then adjust? Are they evaluating their own employability skills on the front end and seeing how those are growing over time in these experiences? And then making sure that that educator is taking the time to build employer relationships and supporting students learning. The same questions that are asked of the employer and the employer has to be engaged. That is key. This isn't all teacher-student focused and then the employer has no part. The employer has a huge role to play in the development of this student in this experience and that has to be an open line of communications back and forth. And so that goes to the next point which is it has to be community aligned. So making sure that we're providing aspects to access to high demand, high wage careers and ensuring that community ownership and collaboration which I was just talking about that there is a large role for the industry to play to Tyra's point how their chamber actually assists in the placing of students. And so that actually concludes the main part of our presentation. We've placed our website up here. I do know in the chat box some of you asked for our resources and we did provide the website where you can see our policy guide, our work based learning toolbox. Please check out. Like I said it has that skills rubric where you can assess the employability skills along the way. It also has some really helpful communication tools in terms of reaching out to industry to start those placements. I will say that in the contact us Chelsea Parker is actually our executive director of work based learning. She was unable to join us today but any questions that you have that are very specific about work based learning she can actually answer those and so that's her contact information up on the screen. But at this time I think I'm actually going to turn it back to our moderators to possibly open up a Q&A. Great. Thank you Heather. This is Kimberly and we are now going to move to the question and answer and as we said we've been keeping track of them in the chat box and so I'm going to let Andrea facilitate this part and if you have other questions please feel free to type them into the chat box. Andrea? Alright thanks so much. Yes and I want to thank everyone for sending along their questions and some of them are getting answered but I think we'll probably go back over some of those as well just to make sure we hit as much as we can because we have about 20 minutes for questions so if you still have questions keep them coming please. So Heather if you can kind of take this first set of questions there are I guess first one we'll start with you had mentioning elective courses and there is a question about are these equivalent to CTE courses and is there a difference there? Yeah that's a great question. Thank you for that. So actually what we did when we expanded this which makes us a little different we think work based learning applies to all students not just CTE students. So when I do talk about electives CTE in Tennessee is obviously a huge way that we fulfill our elective focus. Technical education obviously I'm a little biased there. However we also know that an elective could be that that student is actually in a fine arts elective focus and they would want to participate in a robust work based learning experience at an art gallery. Or the same could be said for general education courses where if a student is really into say an advanced math pathway and they want to continue on that math learning that would also be an appropriate work based learning placement that they would oversee and the work based learning coordinator can oversee all of those different placements within that one setting but that placement is very differentiated. So I'm hoping that's answering that question of when we talk about electives I use the term elective a lot because I really did mean career and technical education courses as well as fine arts music band etc. and then also general education courses. Great and so we talked about placement and we've got a question about kind of the grade at which students can do the off-site work based learning experiences. Is that prior to 12th grade? Only 12th grade etc. Yeah I'll actually answer this and then I'll kick it back to Tyra to expand a little bit upon based off of how they specifically looked at it but we actually say that it needs to be the third or fourth course within a program of study. So whether that is a CTE program of study I'll speak to that because it's the one that I obviously most comfortable with. So as a student is progressing through say an automotive program of study then in that junior or senior year junior or senior year are appropriate times for that placement because the students had those two foundational levels of that coursework already and that's kind of the crux of the key being this industry specific is that that placement has to be tied to that student's specific career path and for CTE within that program of study that they're in. So we allow for either juniors or seniors to take place in that and I'll have Tyra actually talk a little bit more if you can Tyra about how you identified student placements and then the requirements too I know you touched upon for students to actually be in a work based learning placement. Thank you Heather. Yes we, what we have done in Redford County is we allow our seniors to actually do participate in the off campus work positions at work and so what we have done this year we have implemented an in class a school based offering to where they are able to either work in the school store, they can work in the green house and to where some of those CTE courses that actually you know there's a plant sale and there's you know having to keep the thing you know things like that still learning the you know 21st century skills the safety of things of professional learning plans they're also they're still at school and so then in the 12th grade year we allow them to go ahead and go off campus it is like I said an application process and so you know it couldn't just be you know a kid that has taken you know ag science is not going to be able to go the next year and then go into you know the work force they're going to have to you know it is a capstone experience and so it is a progression to where even in our health science we you know it's open doors to where you know they go through the three years they understand about HIPAA they understand about all of the rules that you know are in the healthcare industry to where whenever they are get to their clinical experience they're able to you know definitely be utilized by the business you know to actually help you know to work so that's kind of the way that we do it but you know the things that I love about this whole program is they gave us the rules the framework but then they have let us kind of make it work for our own system and so you know I was on in the pilot for this as she said and so we were able to you know sometimes we would come to the table and we're like oh my goodness what were we thinking you know and so we were able to look at things and you know we met every month and we were able to you know well I feel make the best framework and the best practices that we can I do recommend as Heather said get on the work based learning toolbox and look at what the different you know options and different things are I know our students last year we had them to create a manual of what they actually do at work to where they could show someone or the kids that are going to be in it the next year what you know I wish I would have known XYZ before I took this job or and so what that has done with these employers they are showing it to some of their new employees of you know hey this is what you can expect and so of course kids always love taking pictures of themselves so you know they were able to do that and then create a video or a YouTube using a QR code to where anyone can click on the QR code and then see that video. So they're becoming very creative with the different things that they are how they're utilizing this program so we are very very excited to be a part of it. I hope that answers. Thanks Andrea before we piggyback on to the next question I just wanted to say a couple things because Tyra and I keep talking about placements and she mentioned you know how students can participate if they are juniors you know they don't go off site to the workplace learning they actually stay on site and work within and that had kind of a question I think is specifically tied to that of do these have to be paid internships and the answer there is no we really wanted to make sure that this was more flexible and so these workplace learning experiences specifically for those that are in industry do not have to be paid they can be unpaid they can actually even take place over the summer they don't necessarily have to be kind of tied specific to in previous times we had it tied to a course and it had to be taken at the same time as they were in that final course we really wanted to loosen that up for scheduling and to make sure that students can get the credit when it's happening and if it truly is a robust experience that we're allowing for the students to get those credits so this means that placements can be paid or unpaid either or and then one other thing before I turn it back to you Andrea we do have in the chat box if people have seen Karen Pitts answering some of your questions Karen is another one she is our CT director for Clarksville Montgomery schools and she was a part of our pilot program so if you're getting answers from Karen they are very valuable because she like Tyra also piloted our workplace learning program thank you I was going to ask if you have shadow staff helping us out in the chat box thank you Karen for what you're providing there and that's related because Karen has been offering a lot of robust answers in that chat box someone asked if this chat conversation will be available to attendees and that is something I believe that we can do to make sure we capture all of those kind of an additional conversation that Karen is providing there and we also will be taking all of the different questions that we're seeing and kind of be answering those questions and sending them out when we send out the PowerPoint and the recording etc so yes in short we'll be capturing that as best we can so with that we've gotten a few questions on the legal barriers and so Heather this is probably going to be a bit of your shop at least to start and so it's kind of this question about can people hear me okay I think someone just said they can't hear me well so sorry I'll try to speak closer to the phone anyway but so the couple of legal barrier type questions is regarding like a child abuse clearance that industry supervisors need now I know that sometimes every state is a little bit different as to what their state requires but there's questions about like workers' compensations and how you help businesses get around to these questions or if also the students can only be 18 to be placed as interns so how does Tennessee navigate those big legal questions? Yeah so that's actually probably the questions that we get most from industry and I know Karen and Tyra have been hard at work also at the district level kind of fighting what is mis versus what is fact and so I'll actually start with the first kind of elephant in the room which we briefly touched on but it is that requirement of students to be 18 and what we've actually found is there's very few occupations where that is actually a legal requirement and there are some exceptions when it gets into the advanced manufacturing setting but we've actually found is that those are less based on industry placements when you dig into the specific laws in more particularly in terms of child labor laws specific to types of equipment so for example forklifts and the operation of forklifts and those actually can easily be kind of barrier busted because of hand carts etc that could be used and so there's actually a couple of states who've actually been doing work around this specifically working with industries who have kind of blown that myth wide open and said you know we have students under 18 here all the time who are actively participating I do think some of that does vary state by state but what we've really tried to do in Tennessee is one this has not been solely the department of education's list so we've been actually closely working with our department of labor our department of economic and community development and making sure that they are also aware of these issues and really in many instances kind of more of these cases and these age old restrictions that don't actually exist and so in a lot of instances it turns out that it's actually one workers compensation covers anyone who is in a paid position then the other issue there is again that 18 barrier which in most instances it actually isn't a barrier it does beg the question of liability and what industries actually have to have for coverage and a lot of times that can be dealt with different waivers and so where we kind of went on the lessons learned slide and have those different bullets under liability in fact I'm actually going to go back to this slide here well maybe not well when we pass out the presentation we'll kind of go back through it but there's civic areas around liability where we really wanted to kind of open up those conversations to talk about writers and waivers some states have been working around tax incentives to get around this and so it continues to be kind of that hot topic but in Tennessee that's why we've really worked across agencies to make sure to kind of go through that and identify what is and isn't an actual liability I'll say there are some myths versus facts posted online for us where you guys can kind of read through some of that information I won't go too much more in depth on this because Chelsea Parker really is the expert in all of this and so she'll be able to answer those very specific questions you have of what about placement in this specific industry with this requirement and like I said that's where she's worked very closely with our department of labor and economic community development to get through that. Thanks Heather and I will also make a plug for our forthcoming case study in a month or two where we're going to be talking about you know what's some of the true legal barriers and then those that are just misunderstandings and our colleague here from California in the chat box has been responding to there's national guidance around some of this and often it's I know as I've had conversations with Tennessee it sometimes was very much a point where the state gave experts and things so they could help to debunk some of those myths and help the local to really navigate those things and finding creative solutions only when absolutely necessary for liability and using intermediaries etc. so there's some creative examples out there certainly that I will encourage folks to you know be looking for and so if I can now there's a lot of questions here and we are starting to run out of time so I wanted to hop off of all of the state sort of questions and go to this teacher and someone would ask if you could describe the nature of the workplace learning certification process and I don't know if that's Tyra or Heather. Sure I'll take it and then Tyra can kind of talk about it from their end because they went through all of the training manuals in detail as pilot participants. So what we actually do for our training certification for work based learning coordinators is it's actually a two day training and that certification that they get upon the end of that training is valid for two years however if they participate in our regional professional learning communities so we talked about when we were offering professional development making sure they had regional support they have almost monthly, not quite every month but almost every month regional professional learning communities specific for work based learning coordinators and what those communities do is they break down our implementation guide for work based learning and go into deeper detail and then talk about best practices and barriers at a regional level to kind of overcome those barriers and so if a person already has attended the training for work based learning holds that work based learning certification if they attend at least four of our monthly PLC sessions they will automatically be recertified because they're continuing to get that content at a regional level among work based learning coordinators and again those professional learning communities are driven by the members of our work based learning leadership council so they're actually learning from people who are actually implementing it alongside with them and what that training kind of covers and again a lot of this is actually in the resources online so you should have access to all of this are the different areas of the work based learning implementation guide so everything from liability to actual implementation of the work based learning model placements what that actually looks like when you are graduating class time and I'm actually going to turn it over to Tyra to talk a little more about that and kind of her experience with it. Thank you Heather. Yes our teachers either have gone through the two-day training or they are we are starting that the four you know the PLCs the regional PLCs but the one my teachers that went through the pilot were already trained and their certification is two years but they are going to the sessions just to you know make sure that they are up you know on the newest information but then to also help mentor the teachers who this is their first time doing it the new way and so you know they see the relevance of it and they are excited about it so they do not have any problem at all going and helping others with it so that's an exciting thing but we just you know they get a certificate you know their work based learning certificate and we just keep that on file and that way we know exactly who is you know who needs to make sure they are working on their recertification and who you know who is okay so that's kind of we just you know we rely very heavily on the state for that but then in our own monthly meetings we talk about you know the things that they need to do with their certification. Alright well thank you both so much for answering all of these questions and again there's a lot more questions that we never got to so we're going to be kind of answering those and pushing them back out to everyone who's on the line and those who weren't able to draw today. So with that I'd like to pass it back to Kimberly at ARC to wrap up and give some thanks to our presenters. Great thank you Andrea and again I want to thank you all for participating in the webinar. I'd like to specifically thank our presenters Danielle, Heather and Tyra. They really did a great job, really informational. I appreciate all their hard work. I also want to thank Andrea again partnering with us from the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium. We are going to also be presenting similar webinars on work that's happening in Kentucky and Virginia so please stay tuned for that. You can see on the screen the links for where you can find the PowerPoint and the webinar recording and where you can also find more information about Tennessee's work-based learning. There's also a box up there web link 3 which has a link to the Survey Monkey for Evaluation. We greatly appreciate you taking some time to respond to the evaluation for us. We're going to leave the room open for about 5 to 10 minutes after the webinar so if you didn't have an opportunity to post a question please do so in chat. And as we said a couple times we will be pulling all the information from the chat box so the questions that are in there we will make sure that questions and answers are sent out to the group. At the same time where we've had some of our experts in the chat box responding to questions we'll make sure that those are shared as well. So again I want to thank you all for taking the opportunity to be a part of our webinar and again a big thanks to the presenters Danielle, Heather and Tyra.