 Thank you, Jason, just wanted to welcome everyone to our first official career pathway user group meeting for the school year 2023 2024. If you have a chance to sign in, we have a link here that will have someone from our team put into the chat. So please go ahead and sign in. If you can. And for agenda today, we'll do a welcome and introductions. We will get started on that purpose of career pathway user group. Talk, we will be discussing a little bit on HP 3296 some new some legislation that is out there. We have some components of the C C P application process that we're going to go over and how there is going to highlight some of those key parts as you are going through those applications. So she will be highlighting that we have some questions comments and ideas. We also have a few people from the field that are going to be sharing as a part of those questions comments and ideas. And we will be introducing them in the middle of that. And then finally, we have our evaluation for the group. And so we'll get started there. So, with welcomes and introductions, my name is Bill Rose. I am a part of the Illinois project team. I've been working here for approximately a year. My previous experience was both in the classroom as a business teacher, but also as a C T director at a large public school. I'll kind of shoot it over to Heather. Good morning, everyone. Heather, again, with is be I work with school counselors across the state and also with the arts and communications pathway. And most recently, well, recently in the past two or so years, I work with the pathway endorsement and the college and career readiness indicators and very excited to be here and kick off our year again with these meetings that provides a wealth of information for myself to bring back to be and also to provide any support that that you all need in the creation of your pathway. So we're going to go get into Jason, did you want to introduce yourself as well. Sure. Hi, everybody. My name is Jason Klein, also part of the project team and this year increasingly will be a moving to support Bill and Heather with leading the career pathways. And you'll notice a few other people from our team as well in the in the chat assisting us with chat stuff also just here for their expertise and their. Personal interests in this work as well. So we're going to just kind of get into the purpose of the career pathway user group and Heather. I'm just going to kind of shoot it over to you to the kind of talk a little bit about where we are going with this group. So this was started just for all of you just the historical just started to to provide support to provide an opportunity to have contact with others that are beginning this implementation process or have started from the very beginning. So these monthly meetings will be in a direct response to what we feel is the need based on your input to support. Like I said, the implementation of them on the expansion to ensure that they are of quality and we'll get to that in a moment. I think we've got to slide with our mission and vision statements. So that that's the purpose of these meetings to allow us to to work together to offer the opportunity for conversation and presentations from some of those that are working on on the endorsements. And also, I know and Bill, you may want to speak a little more regarding the email and opportunity to put that out there and get responses. Yeah, and so just like Heather said, we're here to walk you through that kind of process that's happening throughout the state. But one of the key components of this group, I think also is the communication aspect. And as a part of this Google group, we want people to be able to ask questions of others in the field. And so if there's something that comes up and maybe the application process or you're doing something trying to implement a part of this framework in your school district or school and you just had a general question, you can send it to our Google group and we can provide answers or we can at least have a discussion on that digitally. And so definitely something that we feel maybe underutilized at times, but we want people to feel comfortable enough to be able to reach out to the field and say, hey, I have a problem of practice in my district. How are some of you addressing this in your school districts or in your schools? And so I think that's one of the key components that we feel could be utilized as a part of this group. So we're going to just head right in real quickly to our quick announcements. For our quick announcements, the first one is we have our ISBE Career Connected Illinois Professional Learning Calendar. It's up. It's going for 2023-2024. You'll notice we start here in September. It goes all the way through May. We will be updating calendars usually around December to January time where we'll start adding some dates for the summer calendar. But in this 2023-2024 calendar, you'll notice a whole host of different opportunities for professional development. There will be some geared for more teachers and instruction. There are administrator academies. There's a lot of work on the essential skills, which has been a part of the career pathways in implementing and introducing those essential skills into our coursework. And as you go through, you will notice a whole slew of different workshops that happen both during the school day and just outside the school day to meet the different needs of educators in the field. Another, just one that I missed real quickly, we also have some diversity, equity, and inclusion presentations that I always talk about them, but they do an amazing job of getting people to see the many different ways we can support our students and staff as well. And so Jason or Heather, if you wanted to add anything, feel free to. Okay. Also, we have our Save the Date for our ISB Career Connections conference on June 18th. This is a little bit different from last year. We're hosting this in the summertime at Tinley Park. And I know that I think it was previous to 2017, this event was actually held in Tinley Park. And so we're really excited for this conference. We're still working out the details on what this is going to look like, but the Save the Date is generally just for you to put this in your calendars and hold some time, also to share with your staff at your schools or districts. And then we also have the statewide equity symposium on October 4th that you can register for. And I'm going to give that one over to Jason. Jason, did you want to add anything on that? Because I know you've been in some of those conversations on that specific. Nope. Nope. We just want to encourage people to consider signing up. It's a free event being put together by ISB. And hopefully, possibly the first in a series of events, our teammate Chavina is actually part of the planning committee. And this is a big deal across all of our schools. And it's another way that ISB is trying to give everybody in the field direct access to professional development for free in within your jobs, within your current roles. Thanks, Jason. We're going to get into the career pathway endorsement data real quickly. And then we'll get into some of the other presenters as we get through this. So I'm going to turn this over to Heather to talk a little bit about the data. Sure. Currently, we have 215 school districts in the platform. That means that I have received applications from 215 school districts across the state. And the map that you see there shows you where those districts are located. So that's a huge increase. And I see more and more applications coming in. I believe I have maybe four more in my box this morning than I need to attend to. So that's very exciting to see that increase. I think if you hit maybe... Oh, I thought there was more on that one. There is. Bill, everybody else will have seen a slide before this. Bill needed to have hit refresh there. I apologize about that. And so, but yeah. So Heather, that'll see it in their slide. Yeah, okay. So what that says is that nearly half of the districts in Illinois are moving forward though, officially with implementing the pathway endorsement. So again, a lot of these districts are coming in and they're starting the plan. And they do not intend to issue these endorsements until some of them, not until that 2027 timeline. And that's absolutely fantastic to start this now. Because if you think about that, again, we've talked about this a little bit, but the decision to implement is July 1st of 2025. So really, you would need to have those in place in order to offer them for that graduating class of 2027. So that's very exciting to see that. And I have quite a few that are planning to issue, like I said, for further out, but they're still putting their plans in to get that approval to have those conversations. It's a way for me and our team to be able to go in and check and see the progression and have little spot checks of could you look at my team-based challenge? Could you look at the core sequence and so forth? So that's very exciting. And then this is even more exciting perhaps. No, go back to the one you had. Yep, this one. We currently for the 2223 school year, we had 1,072 students receive pathway endorsements. And they are across all of the endorsement areas. So that's very exciting as well. We have additional data, the breakdown of those endorsement areas, the school districts and so forth, and that will be released next week. So you'll have access to that. Hopefully we're going to have that in the weekly message, but then also there'll be documents that are on the pathway endorsement website. So you can check that as well. So that's on that. And all of those have been submitted to our SIS team so that we can make sure that we get those in and counted for the college and career ready indicators as well. So kudos to all those districts and those that are moving forward. I had quite a few. I want to put this in there too just to be transparent on this. I had quite a few that would send me in the info and say, oh my gosh, we didn't issue any, they had approved plans. We didn't issue any this year, but I promise we have more. Keep in mind and this goes great with the next slide. If you hit that or maybe, yep, one more that we are providing to the students and not so much the numbers. So the fact that you have built a plan and that you have these quality components implemented, we know that it's going to change from year to year with how many students truly receive that endorsement, but you're offering that opportunity. And it's something that I think is going to snowball and continue to grow as students see the relevance of these opportunities. So I just want to put that out there as well. If I can just interject real quickly, one point Heather made in the last few minutes about districts planning for endorsements that will be, that will not have students earning them until the class 227, our current ninth graders. Just yesterday I was working with another group of teachers and as they back, as they, well, they went back and forth between forwards planning and backwards planning. And in that discussion, they realized that based on their own internal district curricular processes, the processes with the community college, and let me add, this is a district that that did just issue its first couple of endorsements to students this past June included in that 1072. So they've met that criteria now for 2027. But this endorsement that they were working on, they will first issue it in either 2028 or 2029. And again, that planning process that Heather talked about now, I just want to, want to stress that. So, and I would say, Jacob, I would say from our end that there's not data, not data that we have about that there is work being done in that space. I will refer people back to Juan Jose, who I know is here today, did do a presentation in May. And that is up on the YouTube channel. I'll actually grab the link to that and drop it in here in just a minute for everybody. And then we'll continue to be sharing out ongoing work on that. So that's a great question. So everybody look for that link in just a moment. Back to Heather and Bill. Thanks, Jason. So as we move along, we're going to move into a quick conversation on what the career pathway endorsement application process, what that update is and how to go about that. And so again, Heather, if you want to introduce that. Sure. So this is reflective of the language that's on the website. There's a blue drop down box that says CCPE application process. So I'm pulling this from there. So just to recap what needs to happen now. And as you know, we're transferring in the process of transferring that PWR platform into IWIS. That I cannot give you a timeframe on one that's going to happen. I can tell you it will be this school year though. I know that. We are in the testing phase of that currently. So that's fantastic news. And now we're working out access type components for that. And ensuring that what you're putting in the PWR is also showing up in the new platform. So that's the status on that. But for this year, every school that needs, every school that wants access to the PWR platform that intends to issue endorsements or build their plans for endorsements needs to send in the application. If you have, if you already have access to the platform, you do not need to send in your application again. I have a running total of all those districts of those 215 that currently have access to the PWR platform. Once you have built your plan and you are ready for them to be reviewed, then you need to submit the plan approval form. And it will say at the top of that FY24 just for clarification when you click on that. And that is regardless of if your plans were fully approved, conditionally approved last year, they have to be resubmitted for review. And that's going to happen every year for now until we get the whole structure going prior to 2425. So we just kind of need that to happen now. That is a trigger for me to know that our signal rather, for me to know that you are ready for review so that I can begin to review them, that the team can review any components that we have concerns about, and then get the information out. So the plans for approval for FY24 need to be submitted no later than December 15 of this year for FY24 approval. I've gotten a lot of questions regarding what if we do not plan to issue endorsements for FY24, but we would like you to review them to make sure that they're in compliance, that they have all the components and so forth. Please, when you send me, if that's the case, please still complete the plan approval form. But in your email that you send that form, when you send that form as an attachment, just indicate in your email, in just a short sentence of we're not planning to issue for FY24, but we still would like to have these reviewed. Okay, so that's that component of that. If you can go to the next slide for me, so submitted prior to and right at the deadline of December 15, you will have a status sent back to you no later than February 28. After your plan is approved officially, then I will send the seals for the endorsement as well as an approval letter that says that you are able to issue those endorsements for the FY24 school year. And then for all of those districts, and this you'll see for any district that has the plan that's been approved, you will receive an email from me with an Excel sheet attachment asking for the student data on those students. And then that obviously is then reported to the system. So that is the other component with that I was that we are trying to emerge together to make that reporting of the students a little more streamlined. But for now, this is what we're using to gather that information. So it's very important to get those those back in if you have students that have received endorsements, and those need to be in no later than July 31. I think that that's everything, unless anyone has a question. I have a question. If the platform isn't ready, how do people submit their plans by December 15? Did I miss a step? They're building their plans within the PWR platform. Oh, okay. So if you want your plan to be approved for the students graduating in 2024, then you're still working in the old platform. Yes, that is correct. That's what I missed. Okay, right. And and even if if we opened that the I was application or that platform, if we open that say within a month or two, trying to meet that deadline of December 15 to get it all transferred, I don't want to go down that route. So for for this year, we're going to have everything approved in the PWR or via those those forms. That's a great question there. I think that clarifies some probably a lot of people who had that question. So thank you for explaining that. Any other questions on these dates or or ideas related for other? James, go ahead and unmute yourself and jump in with your question, please. Yeah, my question, if you hopefully you guys can hear me, is when it goes to I was, what's going to be like the EFE's access to the other school district stuff? Is it going to be something where we look at it as well? Or, you know, strictly like the school district sign up and then we can get like, if we have somebody helping like have an approved user part of that, but I mean, you know, is there any sort of crossover with the EFE's compared to the school districts and helping her doing some things along those lines? Right, that's it. That's a great question. That's one of those questions that we're attempting to address as we look at the access. So as you know, this is based at the district level, which is what you just mentioned. So as it stands right now, what they're what they're looking at is that the superintendent would gain access for if this transition occurs during the school year. So the school, the schools that have been approved, so everyone that I have that the 215 districts, they would get approval right off the board and would get access to that. Then it would be up to the superintendent to decide the level of access for that. So the district contact, the district coordinator and so forth. So when it comes to the EFE, that's something we'd have to work out as far as they would be tied to certain districts. So I don't know if it would require them to have multiple logins. I think, I think, and Jason, you can maybe clarify this on this. I think you can have multiple logins tied to different organizations or districts, even with the same email, because you're username is that correct? That part, I don't know. I actually That's what we've got. Yeah, that's like what we've got to figure out. I do want to establish for the EFE, for the EFE directors or someone in ROE who's in a supra district role who works across multiple districts, same thing potentially for folks from the area career centers who might be working with their partner school districts. You have to understand, we all have to understand, first of all, the design of IWAS is around the district and school and the RCDTS structure. And so there are conversations that are taking place in multiple spaces about giving access to other people to see stuff at the minimum and aggregate for their level of responsibility. So across school districts, for example, for any EFE direction director, but these things are going to happen in steps. And I ultimately don't know what's going to happen, right? I don't work for ISP, but with that said, so I recently, last spring, created another new IWAS account. So I actually included NIU in my username, so I wouldn't confuse it with previous or different IWAS accounts. And the reason I need an IWAS account now is because the move to PD Plus for professional development, which actually happens through IWAS. So bottom line is if you're an area career center director, someone in ROE, someone obviously an EFE director, more information, I mean, this is going to have to be an ongoing conversation. I would say it is unlikely to take place until after the IWAS application is up and running. That's my outside question. So we're going to want to keep keep questions. We want to answer all questions, but keep them short because we do want to kick it over to the districts in just a couple minutes. So we'll go, Adam, and hopefully we can get to Lindy and then otherwise throw questions in the chat because obviously we'll have the whole chat history and can be getting back to you. So Adam. Sorry, I was out and jumped back in. I just want to make sure I understand something correctly. We had a CCPE approved last year. We need to resubmit for approval, for re-approval this year. Did I understand that right? I don't want to do something I'm not supposed to do or vice versa. That's correct, that's correct. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Heather. You just complete that form and you indicate the plan that you or plans that you would want reviewed for FY24 and then send that to me. Okay, very good. Thank you so much. No problem. Lindy, go ahead. Thanks, Adam. Yeah, I just had a question about the seal. Who is that sent to the school districts or is that sent to the CCPE coordinators? Are they copied on that so that they have a copy of that seal? It's sent to the district. Okay, so the district contact or the superintendent? It's both. They both the superintendent and the district contact receives the email that has the official approval letter and the the seal. Okay, and so if that person changes like from year to year they should just have. They need to let yeah the superintendent needs to let me know that. Yeah. Okay. So I ran into that actually that's a great segway into this comment that I will make. So thank you, Lindy. When I sent out a mass email at the beginning of this year I made sure that I basically just copied all of my district contact. Some of them came back to me and said you know that cannot be delivered. So if that district contact has changed that's something that I need to know so that I can update that within my file. So all of the communication really should be happening with the district contact. The pathway coordinators they receive different emails and different information. So as it relates to what their process is. So just keep that in mind if that changes then I would need to know that. I've also received emails that superintendents have changed or administrators have changed. So anything to help me get that information to the correct person within the district is crucial. Awesome. Well I'm going to kick it back over to Bill to move on move forward with this. So thanks so much Heather and thanks for those questions. Thanks everyone for those questions actually that clarifies a lot of things that people are going through. So some additional resources you can find at the ISB webpage on the ISB college and career pathway endorsement website. This is has the updated office hours for Heather and Heather do you want to just kind of talk to them a little bit about those hours and you know anything that you feel is pertinent to this conversation. Yeah so the office hours are truly open office hours so you can jump in at any time. You do not have to have a set time or whatnot. I've had people jump in and been waiting for me very patiently so that's very sweet. I apologize if I'm ever running behind because I'm trying to catch up with something. So right at the beginning halfway through near the end the last five minutes then I'll have them apologize. I'm sorry I'm here for the last it's fine that's what the two hours are for. We can extend if I'm able to do that. And I will say that sometimes I have individuals jump in or districts or a team from a district jump in to ask questions or just sit and listen if there's a variety of conversation going on on that day depends on the day. I will tell you that over the summer I had two of the office hours sessions where I had students that came in and were asking questions about the endorsements that was exciting so like I said they're open for everyone and I'll make sure that I get October states on there soon. I usually I'll try to do it in the two month chunks that you've got that and if they were ever to change I'd do my best to get those updated on the website so hopefully it'll say like like I know this is the shot that we've got now the screenshot that we've got now it's just updated from this so I'll let you know that as well. And Heather just want I think just everyone in the field is excited that you're offering those hours to access you and ask questions and just be available at certain times during the week when when certain hiccups come up in our process right or we have something that's not totally clear to us so and I think Dan actually made a comment in that in the chat there so. Well it assists me too I will tell you that so it's it's twofold it's a two-way street there because they'll some of you'll jump in and ask questions on on a specific resource and I think I need to get that which just reminds me of something that I need right now to get up on the website so it's a constant process so I appreciate having the opportunity to work with everyone. So we are going to move into our next portion of our presentations and this section will really focus more on the middle level learners and and even younger and their careers and so we have a few presenters that are going to speak to you from some different perspectives and so our first one is Brian Giovini. Brian if you're if you're here if your camera's on we're going to kind of turn it over to you to talk a little bit about what's going on in Indian Prairie and your school district. Yeah Bill thanks for allowing me to share some of the work that we've done I don't have anything fancy to share but I'll just kind of share a little bit about our mindset and our thoughts and some things that we've evolved over time as things kind of the change prior to the pandemic. We partnered with a school district out in California Alcahone Valley School District who was doing some really creative stuff who had a individual that came from industry but had a mindset of really helping young people kind of do some career exploration that align to who they are as their strengths interests and values and helping our young students kind of explore that through that process that has evolved a little bit but really the the main intent of what our focus was to give students an opportunity to explore a number of different careers through their elementary school years to provide opportunities and just see what's available to them. One of the things that we talked a lot about is just exploring beyond what either your family does or your neighbors do and just seeing possibilities that are available to you as a student within our area and beyond that was really our intent and then at the same time to really help students in connection with our SEL work identify there who they are as their strengths what they're interested in and then what they value but also allow them to then explore that from year to year and to continue to evolve because your strengths may change from year to year but at least have a conversation. Some of our we really targeted our Title I buildings at the time we have 21 elementary school districts and we have five Title I buildings we really targeted those teachers and those staff and they really bought into that experience helping kind of build that culture around it and our principals that are really fantastic job of doing that they connected to art where they built me trees to who they are and what their dreams were in connection to career possibilities and then our teachers provide an opportunity for our youngest learners to explore six different careers that are related to the Ryasek model so they were able to explore each one of those careers within that Ryasek model throughout the year they did a nice job of connecting to their national events or their curriculum and exploring that within the career as the pandemic hit and we've evolved our our schools have adopted in different ways but really at a mainstay now what we try and do for everyone no matter where you are implementing in career exploration within your classroom we want to kind of get to that full 100 percent model but it takes time in a larger district one of the main things that we've done now is provided two world of work weeks we partner with junior achievement and we get three or four professionals to do a zoom meeting and all of our classrooms have an opportunity to zoom in to that career professional where they share a little bit about their career and how they got there in their career journey we try and make it as hands-on as possible our kids love the experiences where they get to do something related to that career some of our biggest hits have been like a yoga instructor where they teach them yoga and then have an opportunity to do that we had a music professional come in and they made some music through there on their desks stem is always a big hit we had somebody and this is always partner junior achievement they find some great professionals for us we had somebody come in who had worked at SpaceX and they talked about the things that they're doing at SpaceX and SpaceX exploration the kids were amazed at all the things and kind of those big connections to it so just starting to give them opportunities and exploration of what careers are possible and what kind of opportunities align to that and that career exploration is hopefully connected to then what we're doing at the six eight and nine twelve level related to our pace framework and our career pathways at high school level so Brian we'll give you a few more minutes but I think one question that people might have on their minds as they're moving forward is what was one of the challenges and getting this started at that level I think for us it's definitely size you have 21 different elementary school billions it doesn't necessarily come in on the school improvement docket for all of our school so our title ones really saw us a you know a need for that so it was an easy adoption there but just buy in for everybody within this when it's when you know elementary school they're the they kind of have everything on their plate you know from math and English and science intervention blocks and so just how do you build this in the other things that they're doing so just the buy-in and we have a grassroots kind of mentality a lot of times for some of these things and so just every year you get a little bit more buy-in and a little bit more buy-in so it's kind of a slow rollout so that's the that's the hardest part of it. Can I jump in with two questions for Brian one Brian who've been some of the key people right you're you're you can't be in however many hundreds of elementary classrooms there even however many hundreds of intermediate classrooms there are you you're not teaching in them you you could only be in one at a time so who are some of the other people involved in making this happen at whatever speed it is or isn't happening but who are those key players that and what would you say to districts and particularly given that most districts nearly all districts in the state are smaller than yours you know would you have any advice for what that might look like? Our biggest leverage point was our early adopters we found a few teachers who were yes this is exactly what I want when I need and so they were change agents for their grade level first and then they're building second and they shared some of that professional learning and then we tapped those people to lead professional learning across the district for after-school opportunities so those were our biggest ones and then during those district-wide events you know you hear people talking oh I want to do that or I want to do that and then you hear a principal sharing with another building so those early adopters were the biggest change agents for us for sure and then we also put in some time kind of during the pandemic where those early adopters built a little bit of a framework of how could you do this within it within the year and then they made some curricular connections so that it wasn't an extra thing with like here's how you connected to this lesson in social studies or this is where it could live or Valentine's Day is coming up and here's a career related to that how you could really highlight that career while you're celebrating the activities of Valentine's Day Mother's Day is a big one right there's a lot of career connections to that so they were making natural connections to things that they already do in their classroom and that was always the oh I buy into this but how do I actually implement it so our classroom teachers kind of were able to share that story that was always a huge bonus for us and then my my other question is what do you think are key next steps and uh in terms of of trying to either expand the work or deepen the work and who are some of the people that you see being involved in those next steps within the district it's definitely the principles you know the when they make a priority for something you know on their pdw Wednesday agendas or their sip agendas you know that's when you get see the traction otherwise it's just you know pockets happening here or there of individual teachers so it's re going back to the table of the principles now that we've kind of been doing this and allowing our principles who have adapted at their buildings to share their successes and then trying to get some time on those other principles to continue this work forward so that there really are our biggest advocate for this if they don't buy into it it's not going to happen at their building so I it's really leveraging the principle and and their work real quick Jason it looks like Dan has a question we're going to have one more question from Dan and then we'll kind of pivot over to Sue as our next presenter so Dan go ahead this is pretty exciting Brian so you know kudos to you and the district we're kind of a and that's probably not as big as indian prairie in mclean county but very interested in kind of what you're saying in in our middle school so maybe just to clarify when you're you know the you know kind of how this is embedded in the middle schools in indian prairie so it this is an addition like when the teacher are doing in their classrooms around you know correct exploration that's kind of an addition to you had mentioned the the world to work week with junior achievement are those two separate and those are both kind of integrated into what teachers are doing in their classroom so just to clarify that maybe yeah and this is really more k5 not even middle school but the world of work week is kind of a it was our easiest way to get traction for all kids you can get a zoom and any kid from the district or any classroom from the district can sign up we did we alternate 10 to 10 to during a week anybody can sign up so they don't necessarily have to be really implementing this to take advantage of that but this is just our bare minimum of an opportunity to gain access to professionals beyond their classrooms and give up 30 minutes of their time well brian i think that's a great opportunity for school districts to take into consideration as they're moving into this work and allowing this to kind of drop down into those younger ages into the elementary um i me personally i just kind of see it as an opportunity to have those discussions on those non-traditional careers you've mentioned that mother's day event um thinking about how non-traditional careers um can can really play into that conversation and um showing that you can really be anything you want to be um so really really kudos to you and your district for moving this forward all right um thanks thanks brian uh we are going to then go into our next presenter uh which is from naperville 203 uh leading this work is uh sue stridell so sue the platform is yours is is sue here um sue was definitely in the zoom oh there we go i see her now she's talking we can't hear you too yeah she's unmuted we'll work on it sue we could give her a second to to come back and in yeah there you are okay sounds good so um great perfect um so um thanks brian for sharing what's happening in indian prairie school district 204 where naperville district 203 and we are actually right um right next door um so if bill if you could advance the next for the next slide that'd be great um so just wanted to share a little bit about our district we are a western um we're in the western suburbs of chicago and we have over 16 000 students um you can see kind of our breakdown on this slide we are the ninth largest district in illinois and we have um 23 sites including two high schools um within our district and approximately 86 percent of our graduates attend college you want to keep advancing that'd be great wonderful thing so as we were going along there were a lot of things that were framing our work um one of the pieces is that even though we have 86 percent of our students um attending a post-secondary institution 50 percent of our graduates um which is a great number was completing a degree within four years of um post high school so that includes technical degrees as well um so not necessarily just a four-year institution and then after six years we had 70 percent so but that still means that three in ten students um we may maybe they're they're taking a different path maybe they're entering the workforce right away but we wanted to ensure as we're going through this process to address all the needs of our students um so that that data framed our work so did obviously asa the post secondary workforce readiness act pwr um illinois pace that came from that and then perkins five which promoted that continual um career and technical education and then we also looked at some of our local initiatives including our within our strategic plan and then also looking at um the american school um counselor association as well asca and what's what they framed as part of that because because they also include college and career readiness in um in their framework for our school counselors so our process then was threefold um the first initial process was really um creating a comprehensive school counseling curriculum six through twelve so that was the same process that we used with all of our content other curricular content area so whether it's for literacy whether it's for math science um a foreign language um all of those that same process we went through for our college and career readiness um and then our second phase was really then um looking at what college and career pathways can we create and then aligned to that um as heather was speaking about earlier is those diploma endorsements um the final step in in continuing to increase um and address these needs for our students is having data systems and looking at systems of support for all of our students and making sure that the data that we're looking at um can support our students as they create individual learning plans but then also that we have data about what what is um currently happening with our students in terms of their interests what are they exploring and then the CCRI that happens with the state so using that data then to inform what we continue to do and improve with our counseling curriculum and then how we continue to address student needs with um the pathways that we are creating including the courses that we're offering so it was it it has been and continues to be a paradigm shift for not only our school counselors who are actually loving some of this work that that we're moving forward to but just for our teachers and our buildings and even for our students and our parents um to see that our focus is not just about um college um but it's also about that career readiness which they do go hand in hand but that it's both and um and we're trying to create as many options as possible for our students so that they they don't realize oh I shut this door and I didn't realize I shut this door um so it was a big change management process and um to answer um I know Jason asked this question earlier about like who are the key players um for Indian Prairie School District our key players really were our building and district leadership as well as our school counselors um our teachers also you know come aboard with it as well but I would say um those individuals have really played an instrumental role in in um making this something that we provide and um for all of our students um moving to the next slide so as we were going through um this process the first thing that we did was really looking at what is our overarching purpose what do we mean and what do we want for college and career life readiness um so we we came up with a global statement and then we also had um shorter statements about academic readiness college career readiness workplace readiness and overall wellness um that whole like what what do we mean and what do we want for students and their lives and that wellness so that all of those pieces bring to our work um from there Bill if you could yeah thank you perfectly um we went through as I said before a full curriculum process so in our district we we have four phases to that process the first is planning and research so we looked back at all of those things that frame our work that I mentioned previously we looked at um what other districts even could be doing and have been doing what might be happening at that post-secondary level um and and seeing how we can then work backwards to support our students so that they are ready for that next step whatever that next step may be in in their journey phase two then was curriculum mapping so we actually created with our counselors um curriculum maps um that outlines the targets the lessons um how much time all of that would take some of those logistics um and and did that as well um from there we realized too that many of our school counselors are are not necessarily trained initially as teachers um we did have some so then we brought in our learning support coaches as well to really look at instructional practices and how do we um instruct and provide this this knowledge of skills and and career exploration in a way that's going to be engaging the students and then phase three it was then professional learning we provided professional learning to all of our school counselors um and then we brought all of our learning support coaches as well as administration and other key players in to provide some understanding of what this larger picture was and what the the curriculum entails and then phase four was implementation and that that had some bumps in it because it um we tried as much as possible to infuse things within our curriculum in our existing curriculum but we also knew that there needed to be some dedicated time to some of this career exploration so um we have a few different ways where we provide implementation and I'll talk about that in a little bit as well so um if we could continue um so our learning standards as we were going through that research phase really came from the PACE framework um the mindsets and behaviors for student success from ASCA and then also the social emotional learning standards that exists through ISB and then with our mapping what we did even prior to that was create vision mission and we created what we wanted for all of our students what we wanted all of our counselors to be able to do and how we wanted them to support this work and then finally what the counseling program entailed um all together so then from there we created goals based off of what we believe are our priority um and then I have noted on here how we how we are providing that for each of our grade levels and and here I'm focusing just on junior high this extends all the way through high school as well and we have a similar framework for high school um too but um just focusing on junior high for today we have our priority standards and then I listed on here how they're provided so there's four whole group lessons for sixth grade one experience one self-paced lesson so a self-paced lesson is something that we push out um via our learning management system which for us is canvas um the whole group lessons are done um with each building does it slightly differently but for them for the vast majority what our counselors do since they're the ones who um provide the instruction with each of the lessons is that they will push into classrooms um sometimes the teacher that's in that classroom may also co-teach a little bit um but but the responsibility actually lies on the counselor as a whole um so you can see what we're doing sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade and then experiences um some of the experiences are school run and some of them are um district run depending on on what what the target is and what we're trying to accomplish so moving from there um we this is just the snapshot of the of a top portion of one of our curriculum maps and you can see what the overview is which is that overall arching goal for that grade level there's a flow at the top that shows um what what a student may expect or what counselors and buildings will will be doing during the course of us you can see the whole group lessons versus the experiences here and then after that we had um we have it broken down to units and then within each unit we have the learning standards of the targets listed and then a whole group lesson um and then whatever else um falls within that unit so in this case we've used the exemplar lesson model in our in our district we have three three to four counselors per um per building and then we usually have one counselor that focuses on a grade level so there they are the ones that would be responsible so the eighth grade counselor would be the one who is responsible for the eighth grade counseling curriculum and um and instructing on those lessons since they're one per building they do have the autonomy to do a little bit of finessing with those lessons in order to make that fit for their population um and adjust adjust and adapt but we provide an exemplar lesson so if they just want to take that and run with that that they can and our whole goal is in creating the exemplar lesson is so that there is um there's consistency as much as possible um we there are some things that are loose and there's some things that are tight the things that are tight is that the targets must be the the targets must be met um so but things that are loose we could push into classes some some of the buildings deliver during a team time so they might kind of reorganize their junior high team schedule for that day and then deliver something to all of all of the students within that grade level team um and then another day they might address it differently with the other sixth grade team or the other eighth grade team um the the self-paced lessons are pushed out via our lms which i mentioned before is canvas they they try and keep track of who might have missed the sessions and do some one-on-one makeup sessions or have that information available in our learning management system and then we have of course our experiences and those experiences are during the school day and some of them are outside of the school day um the other piece that's tight um that we're continuing or continuing to tighten I should say and will be something that will be um required is having a home connection so right now we're increasing that and so most of our lessons have it but we're continuing to add that to make sure that it is existent is that at the end of a lesson we ask students to do something that will um connect them to the parent so or the family so they'll shoot an email to the their family their trusted adult um and will um share one tidbit either from the lesson or something that they did so if they um found a career that they were interested based off of the presentation they might send an email you know if I was mom it would be hey mom um we were exploring um um welding today it came up during the session I think I'd like to learn more about it and then hit sun and so that is something that we're continuing to increase because we want parent involvement and we want we don't we want parents to know um some of the good work that we're doing in terms of career exploration for these students um the next perfect so then as part of um our our like as part of our curriculum we also did an experience at the end of eighth grade which connects and aligns to pace the pace framework so by the end of eighth grade a student should be supported to attend a career exploration day so that was one of the things that we did um there's a short clip if you want if you have a copy of the slides if you click on the career motivate um text there you can watch it on your own time it shows you what we did it was a very um it was for every single student it was a field trip um so they went for half a day so we had half of the students come in the morning half of the students come in the afternoon we had about a hundred businesses come and created an interactive um hands-on activity for our students so that they could explore a particular career um we represented all of the seven pathways um that exist um and students were required to go through each of those zones as we grouped them so that they had the ability and the time to explore all of the areas so even if they weren't interested in anything in manufacturing engineering trades um they were still going through that that zone if they weren't interested in arts and communication they were still going through that zone because sometimes we never know what we um through some exposure that it might just um click and a little spark happen and and then we go from there so um we called it career motivates because it was for our eighth grade students and we are going to be holding it again this year that's last year's information so it will be happening October 20th this year and we are super excited because we have a number of businesses already signed up and I think it's going to be bigger than last year um which is great um one of the last pieces that I did not met or one of the other pieces that I didn't mention yet that I wanted to mention is as we went to phase three and we were looking at how do we collect data how do we keep track of our CCRI how do we look at some of this and and provide a tool to help students continue to explore we then um adopted school links um I know that there are a few other school links districts that are out there in the state um but that was one of the the pieces and modes that we used to supplement and enhance what we were doing um across the board so students can go in there they have a whole section on career exploration they have a whole section on college exploration where students can favorite things and do that they can create a resume in there they can create their individual learning plan and their four-year high school career plan as well so um so it was a so we continued to to scaffold all of these pieces so um as we did like career motivates happens in the fall because we have a lesson that leads into that and then after that they these eighth graders start looking at and creating their four-year plan for high school so in order to support our students we wanted to give them an opportunity to explore some careers and then look at well what are the activities at high school that are available to me what are the courses that are available to me in high school and then make some strategic choices over the over those next four years as they're selecting their courses and and looking at how to prioritize their time and energy that hopefully it's aligned to things that they're interested in or it's it's there an opportunity to try some different things to find out whether or not those weren't a fit for their their future or what they hope so um so that's I think I've talked too much but that's um wanted to give you a snapshot of what we're doing in our junior high so sue I would say there's never enough talk on this right is that um you you definitely nailed um what you guys are doing in neighborville and and we hope that this conversation really brings about more discussion in the future and and more questions about you know I one thing that I wrote down as you were presenting was that comprehensive counseling curriculum like I know there's going to be questions about that down the road and so we hope that people will reach out to you and um ask those questions or maybe ask them in the google group but um we really appreciate your time and presenting um all of this work um and moving down the career pathway endorsement um idea into elementary and middles and if you looked in the chat you'll notice Sue put in her email there and so please take advantage of that if you have questions around that presentation we are getting towards the end of uh we're actually over time so I don't want to keep people too long but um as you're moving along if you have time to take the evaluation here please feel free to um do that and a few um next things as you'll notice in your calendars um our next meeting it was actually scheduled for October 20th we actually had to move that due to some other events going on and so we are on Friday the 13th October 3rd October 13th is are going to be our next meeting um we also again want to encourage people that the career pathway user group you can ask questions um by sending those questions to the google group um so you just type in career pathway user group uh with the appropriate dashes and then at googlegroups.com and and that will send that question to the group and we can start start having conversations around those uh topics