Author: Megan Kellin

We have been celebrating Career and Technical Education this month!  Career and Technical Education Month®, generously sponsored in 2022 by the National Association of Home Builders. CTE Month® is a public awareness campaign that takes place each February to celebrate the value of CTE and the achievements and accomplishments of CTE programs across the country. Share with the world how much you love CTE! Raise awareness about the importance of CTE for our students and our nation’s economy and have fun doing it!

Parents and Students: Now is the time to start looking at registration guides for each school and talk to counselors about NEXT Career Pathways for the NEXT school year.

About the Program

to explore career options that inspire hope and curiosity! This program helps students imagine a future vision of themselves through relevant experiences, hands-on learning, and unique partnerships with local industries and colleges. Pathways courses unleash endless possibilities for students to explore & experience local career paths while still in high school so that they can excel in their futures.

AVAILABLE AT

• BIGFORK HIGH SCHOOL
• DEER RIVER HIGH SCHOOL
• FLOODWOOD HIGH SCHOOL
• GREENWAY HIGH SCHOOL
• GRAND RAPIDS HIGH SCHOOL
• HILL CITY HIGH SCHOOL
• NASHWAUK-KEEWATIN HIGH SCHOOL
• NORTHLAND COMMUNITY SCHOOL

Via WDIO.com

Via Grand Rapids Herald Review

Via Grand Rapids Herald Review

A report published by the Center for Rural Policy and Development (RCPD), “Finding work or finding workers? Part 4: Changing the story on careers in rural Minnesota,” focused a narrative often held by high school students that says they cannot find a career in their rural hometown communities. By diving into where this narrative begins, the report reveals ways to change this perception and overcome barriers to providing education about careers in these communities.

According to the report, written by Research Associate Kelly Asche and released in August 2019, organizations and employers in Minnesota are wondering why students leave rural areas after high school even when these areas show an increase in job opportunities.

Regional Workforce Strategy Consultant Jessica Miller with the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) stated, “Businesses and organizations have started to take notice of the high school narrative that [says] there are no opportunities for them in their region.”

Asche first looked at where this narrative is beginning. The “primary influencers” of high schoolers perceptions regarding career opportunities are their immediate family, formal advisors and experience. The report found if parents believe there is a lack of economic opportunity and value higher education, the student is more likely to move away. Additionally, formal advisors—such as college admission officials, teachers and guidance counselors—can impact how parents view opportunities for their children.

According to one study, “More employment possibilities, better pay and greater flexibility appeared to resonate strongly with parents, especially with rural parents of first-generation college-goers.”

The last influencer on high school students is hands-on experience where they can learn about careers in their area and opportunities that exist. Internships, get-to-know-you events and career expos, for example.

Here in Grand Rapids, the ISD 318 Career Pathways program is working to grow student interest in their future careers.

The program began in 2017 after receiving a grant from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB). This grant helped to fund the development of the IASC Healthcare and Manufacturing Career Pathway in Grand Rapids High School, Greenway High School, Nashwauk-Keewatin High School and Itasca Community College.

“Career Pathways is a unique model that allows high school students to prepare for post-secondary opportunities in both college and in the workforce,” said Grand Rapids High School (GRHS) Principal Mark Schroeder.

Although communities want to share industry knowledge with local students, there are barriers to this quest. Asche described three of these barriers—transportation, shortage of instructors and state graduation requirements. The latter of these refers to the fact that many classes students can participate in to learn more about specific industries do not count toward graduation requirements.

Career Pathways has been able to address the issue of transportation through partnerships and online opportunities.

“The program partners high schools to increase opportunities for student course offerings through telepresence and allowing students to travel between districts to participate in programming,” a press release from IASC Career Pathways stated.

Asche’s report also examined the “Build Dakota Scholarship Program” from the state of South Dakota. The program provides students going to South Dakota technical schools a chance to graduate with no debt, provided they commit to living and working in South Dakota for three years following graduation. This program is available to in-state and out-state students with 10-25 of the 300 scholarships given each year having gone to Minnesota students.

“As we develop programs to expose more students to technical education and careers, we may end up losing those students to South Dakota for the free tuition,” Director of the Minnesota Valley Career and Technical Education Collaborative Druce Bergeson said. “State leaders need to know that not only are we having to recruit (heavily) our students into technical career paths in hopes of plugging the employee shortage, but we are also fighting a battle with other states who seem to be better armed at getting our students into their schools and committed to working in their state.”

Out of 700 tenth graders in southwest Minnesota, 70% said they would choose the career they wanted over living in the area they prefer, according to a study conducted by DEED. Furthermore, 74.2% believe they could find a career they wanted in the region. It seems the efforts of local organizations are starting to pay off as communities work to educate their students on the opportunities of their individual region.

“By offering these career pathways to youth in our area, IASC will become the student-centered workforce development movement of the region and a connection point for the whole community to use in addressing workforce and economic challenges,” explained Director of Career Pathways Claire Peterlin.

While there are barriers that may make the work difficult, programs such as Career Pathways is pushing forward to make sure students in the Grand Rapids area know what their options are right here in this region.

To read “Part 4: Changing the story on careers in rural Minnesota,” visit www.ruralmn.org.

Via Grand Rapids Herald Review

IASC Career Pathways is entering its third academic year of programming with a number of major developments. Two advisory committee meetings were held in October for the topics of Manufacturing and Healthcare. The program has also received significant grant money to continue its work.

According to a press release from IASC Career Pathways, the program “exists to provide experiential opportunities for students to explore career options that lead to high quality employment in northeastern minnesota. The program partners high schools to increase opportunities for student course offerings through telepresence and allowing students to travel between districts to participate in programming.”

Claire Peterlin is the program coordinator of IASC Career Pathways. The program began in 2017 after receiving a grant from IRRRB. This grant helped to fund the development of the IASC Healthcare and Manufacturing Career Pathway in Grand Rapids High School, Greenway High School, Nashwauk-Keewatin High School and Itasca Community College.

In September 2019, Career Pathways was awarded a grant from the Blandin Foundation for the amount of $500,000. The grant is to help expand the work being done in the four original schools, as well as expand to Bigfork, Hill City, Northland Remer, Deer River and Floodwood. Additionally, the grant will assist in the addition of new pathways at the schools for students to learn more about. These new programs will include Natural Resources and Agriculture, Business, Construction, Computer Science and Education.

“A lot of the teachers radiate with joy and passion when they talk about their programs and are so humble when talking to businesses about their needs,” Peterlin remarked. “I really feel like they listen and then take that information and utilize in their classrooms. This is a game changer for all of us, I think!”

Each quarter, industry advisory committees meet for tours of schools and businesses, shared design activities and to work on continuing to bring new members to the meetings. In October, the two advisory committees for the Manufacturing and Healthcare pathways met.

“Attendees participated in an interactive design discussion centered on ‘Profile of a Pathway Graduate’ where they discussed what they hope students experience during their high school Career Pathway years and what skills they will graduate with as a result of their pathway,” Peterlin said.

Additionally, the manufacturing advisory committee was able to tour the GRHS Tech Center. Instructors from the high school discussed the courses they teach, along with some of the successes and challenges they face. Business members were able to give ideas on how to improve and enhance current programming.

“I believe we have started a new trend/pilot program that the entire state of Minn. could stand behind and really support. It feels good to be a part of a team that wants to thrive and see good things happen for all involved,” said Kelly Hertling, HR Supervisor at L&M Radiator and Member of the IASC Manufacturing Career Pathway.

Mindy Nuhring, Executive Director of River Grand Senior Living and m ember of the IASC Healthcare Career Pathway Advisory Committee commented, “I chose to attend the advisory committee meeting because I believe that we need to come up with a better way to guide young people into jobs/careers and I believe the Career Pathways program is a way to achieve this goal. I would encourage community members to be involved because the more community involvement, the better the program will be.”

The next advisory committee meetings will be held in January. Advisory Committees for the new pathways are in development. If you would like to be included in these meetings, please contact Claire Peterlin at cpeterlin@isd318.org or 218-290-0126.

Via Grand Rapids Herald Review

Members of the Independent School District (ISD) 318 School Board heard an update on the IASC Career Pathways program during a regular meeting on Monday, May 20. The presentation was provided by Claire Peterlin, Coordinator for the Career Pathways Team, who discussed the past, present and future of the program.

“We have been working together across three districts to build career pathways around manufacturing and healthcare for students, all with the idea of building collaborative experiences that let students build their own identity around a career field,” explained Peterlin on Monday.

The program began with manufacturing and healthcare “because there was a huge need for those fields within our region,” she continued.

“We hear from businesses all the time that there’s a need for employees to fill these positions, and we hear from students that there are no opportunities here to work, and we want to address that misperception through this work and let students know that this is a great place to live and work, and to let businesses know that there is room in our schools for them to collaborate,” Peterlin continued.

Career pathways is a buzzword these days, explained Peterlin, who said that it essentially refers to a program of interconnected academic and elective classes revolving around a career or subject theme. It is integrated with experiential learning and close connections between secondary and postsecondary education, training and apprenticeship. The program is designed to support the development of career and life readiness for the learner, so that the individual can successfully enter and advance in a career path.

“Career pathways allow students opportunities to explore career options,” she explained. “We want to offer experiences that will build student’s future professional identity within a career field. We want to prepare students with foundational skills for post secondary or career selection. We want to serve communities as a catalyst for regional workforce development initiatives to address workforce shortages within the region. What better way to start workforce development than in our schools?”

Through the career pathways program, the districts also seek to “provide meaningful connections with higher education and industry partners,” “leverage available resources to increase student opportunities,” and “change regional perceptions of community, workforce, and youth to more positive and optimistic outlooks on possibilities,” Peterlin continued.

Students in the high school career pathways program begin their ninth grade year of high school. The program is three-fold. It is based on a Gateway, Core and Capstone model.

Gateway courses serve as introductory courses that allow students to explore the career options within a field and start building basic skills.

Core courses are then offered for students in grades 10-12. Many of these courses, which have existed for many years in the high schools and even count towards graduation requirements in the core subject areas, are courses that develop the technical skill and knowledge of concepts relevant to that career choice. For example, Medical Terminology is a core course for the healthcare pathway.

The capstone course is the last portion of the pathway for students in grades 11-12. In these courses, students have the opportunity to gain hands-on experiences that offer them a real-world view or industry recognized experience in their career pathway. For healthcare, students can earn their CNA and participate in a college-level Introduction to Health Concepts course taught from Itasca Community College (ICC). For manufacturing, students can travel to and participate in a course at Grand Rapids High School where they will run their own manufacturing business designing and selling products, and senior students can also elect to have a manufacturing internship where they can work with a local business, earn a wage, and receive high school credit, all within the school day schedule.

There’s a lot of talk about career pathways and career academies lately, she continued.

“So what’s our flavor? Our flavor is that we aren’t doing this all in one building or even in one district,” Peterlin explained. “This is multiple districts. Right now it’s been three districts, but the future goal is to grow to include other districts, all working together to expand opportunities for students. This has to be something that all IASC students can access.”

That means offering collaborative, cross-district programming, she explained, resulting in an increase in student career exploration experience options, optional programming to help students prepare for their future, ensuring the program is data driven (addressing workforce needs of the region), has innovative program delivery, and is a whole community effort.

In 2016, an Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation (IRRR) grant was awarded to ISD 316, 318, 319 and ICC. At the time, the grant was for three years, with only two career pathways, manufacturing and healthcare. Current enrollment is 1,160 across the two pathways in the three participating districts.

“What we found is that we were able to do a lot of really great things, so we asked for an extension with the opportunity to expand the scope and include new pathways,” explained Peterlin.

The districts are waiting on final approval. If granted, the IRRR grant will be extended to June 30, 2022 as well as allow for the expansion of the program. They are also seeking additional Blandin Foundation grant assistance for all of IASC inclusion in career pathway programming.

“We want to become the hub for student-centered workforce development efforts within the IASC region,” said Peterlin, who added that work will continue to grow and evolve the project.

In other business, the board:

• Approved the minutes of the May 6 school board meeting and May 13 special meeting.

• Approved April 2019 claims.

• Approved a resolution to accept donations and gifts for January, February and March 2019 totaling $43,185.88.

• Approved the following staff changes: Charish Amundson, custodian resignation; MacKenzie Bodem, teacher resignation; Julia Card, Education Support Professional (ESP) retirement; Lindsay Champion, teacher resignation; Alexa Kellin, ESP resignation; Sheralee Soring, secretary retirement; and Jessica Wilcowski, Community Education replacement hire.

• Approved the recertification of Identified Officials With Authority (IOwA) for Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) secure systems. The MDE requires that school districts annually designate an Identified Official with Authority to comply with the MNIT Enterprise Identity and Access Management Standard which states that all user access rights to Minnesota state systems must be reviewed and recertified at least annually. The IOwA will assign job duties and authorize external user’s access to MDE secure systems for their local education agency. The board approved to authorize Rochelle VanDenHeuvel to act as the IOwA and Julie Rasmussen to act as the IOwA to add and remove names only for Grand Rapids Public School District.

• Accepted the first reading of policy 613 Graduation Requirements.

• Accepted the second reading and adopted policy 799 Post-Issuance Debt Compliance Policy. This is a new policy required by the IRS for new bonds issued.

• Approved an amendment to ISD 318’s accounting and financial procedures manual. As directed by the adoption of the Post-Issuance Debt Compliance Policy, the business manager will perform post-issuance debt compliance procedures for all of the district’s outstanding debt.

• Approved the award of contract for Bigfork fire alarm replacement. On April 26, three contractors were invited to bid and two bids were received for the project. The low quote of $76,926 was submitted by Northstar Cabling & Communications.

The next school board open forum will be held June 3 at 6:30 p.m. in the Administration Building Board Room and via telepresence at the Bigfork School. The next school board regular meeting will follow at 7 p.m.

Following the regular meeting, the board went into closed session to discuss labor negotiation strategies.