If you attended college, you likely had a counselor in high school who helped you prepare. This person guided you through many of the questions you considered: What are your interests? What careers have you considered? What colleges might be interesting? What courses do you need for those colleges, or fields of study? And if you were lucky, you also had some out-of-school experiences at those schools. Perhaps you visited, or had a friend who went there you spoke about it with you, both of which worked to make it more real to you.
If you were someone who didn’t attend college, you may not have had this level of support in considering a career or other program right out of high school. And like you, there are thousands of kids every year graduating high school in Cuyahoga County seeking a different option than attending college. And it’s likely they have not had much support in figuring this out.
Starting in November, after more than 2 years of planning completed by over 80 experts and professionals, a transformative approach launches to help all students, whether college is in their immediate plans or not, to explore and plan for a career. It’s called PACE (Planning and Career Exploration) and will start in CMSD but rapidly expand to other County schools in fall 2022 (and then beyond in future years). This transformative approach is different from the current model in many critical ways:
1) It focuses on each student identifying a career and developing a career plan. Then, it helps students identify the high school plans (such as coursework) and post-high school plans (such as community college, programs, certificates, or 4 year college) that enable that career.
2) It provides exposure and live experiences regarding different careers – through visits to companies or non-profits, opportunity to play with technologies, and even internships or mini-co-ops – so students have a much better understanding of what the day-to-day work is within given occupations. This will start in middle school and has a particular focus on those careers which are in-demand in our region and pay a family-sustaining wage (over $22.80/hour).
3) It has both a curricular, in-school aspect, and an extracurricular, out-of-school aspect, including connections to external partners and employers. This is not only a fundamental transformation in how services and curriculum are delivered in school, but all the youth development organizations who work within schools (such as College Now) are changing their approach. In addition, employer engagement is a critical element to this work. A small number of people will lead the organization responsible for this work, which will be called “the Consortium’; they engage employers and nonprofits to make PACE come to life.
It’s almost impossible to summarize the monumental shifts in education delivery that are happening because of this initiative. We’ll be sharing more about this initiative in the coming weeks (not months – launch is in November!) including where you can get more frequent updates.