Course to College & Career Regional Gatherings grow Iowa’s College and Career Going Culture

As students in Iowa’s schools continue to explore and evaluate opportunities after high school, many of their school counselors and college and career transition counselors (CCTCs) gathered for a day of strategizing on how to serve those students and forge a culture of college and career going in their schools and communities through Iowa’s Course to College & Career Program.

Offered by the Iowa Department of Education, the Course to College & Career program supports high schools in building a college- and career-going culture through five stages: prepare, apply, finance, decide and go.

Four regional convenings were held in nearly every corner of the state last month with agendas that reflected the full arc of the program’s five-step framework.

“We established these sessions from feedback from counselors and staff that they wanted time to collaborate with their peers and find out what other schools were doing in their regions,” said Iowa Department of Education Postsecondary Community Engagement Consultant Danielle Sampson. “We've been very intentional about trying to make these the initiatives that we've put in place in the last few years to be very doable and attainable.”

Department staff highlighted the ‘Claim Your Future’ initiative, which provides Iowa high school seniors with information on postsecondary options and instructions on critical next steps. Attendees also received updated information on career information systems and career-connected learning, including how to administer college match and fit exercises that help students align their academic profile with schools’ admissions profiles and assess how well an institution meets a student’s personal, professional, social and financial needs.  

The agenda also included opportunities to collaborate on the use of artificial intelligence to enhance school counseling, FAFSA updates and goal setting for this year and future academic years.

“They can take these engagement activities back to their students to help focus on creating a match and fit list, applying for scholarships and applying to schools,” Sampson said. “We’re actually having them [counselors and CCTCs] do the activity before they take it back to the school with them and figure out how to best apply it to their students.”

That practical, take-it-home design is intentional. The one-day regional structure lets them dive in, participate and immediately return to their schools with actionable steps taken from the day’s program and fellow college and career access professionals in their area.

“Networking is a big thing that lets you get a broader picture of what other schools are doing,” said Sharisse Naeve, a CCTC from Des Moines Area Community College who serves students at Boone and Ogden High Schools. “If we find out somebody is having success with something, we can try that. And we learn about new tools and resources.”

Those tools and resources are provided to schools through weekly statewide collaboration calls, preparedness toolkits, student guides and a website that provides an on-demand repository of supportive resources and materials. These assets help schools build a college-and career-going culture and support staff in coordinating college and career exploration opportunities.

“I tried to get involved with the Course to College & Career program when I first started in this role,” said Jenny Nady, a school counselor at Nevada High School. “I've been using a lot of what the program provides, and we participate in several of the activities, the decision days, and we use it to access information quickly. It's been a huge part of our program.”

More than 250 schools in Iowa participate in Course to College & Career, providing a rich, diverse statewide network for school counselors to tap into, in addition to direct support from Department staff to assist students with each of the five steps of the program.

"When schools build a college- and career-going culture, students see a future for themselves they may not have imagined,” said the Department’s Bureau of Postsecondary Community Engagement Chief Christina Sibaouih. “Course to College & Career gives counselors the structure and the support to make that happen. It also gives counselors in smaller districts access to the same resources and tools as larger districts and creates a statewide network of colleagues to drive college and career readiness.”

With the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) now open, special attention was given to resources available to aid in FAFSA completion, including weekly student-specific FAFSA reports, financial aid offer toolkits, FAFSA verification guides and more.

“The FAFSA awareness resources are great, and some of the ideas about how to go about promoting it and making students and parents aware are useful,” Nady said. “We have a lot of parents who, because they’re high earners, think their student won’t qualify for financial aid. But there are things that students can qualify for that have nothing to do with income, and it might be related to the career field they’re going into.”

To help recognize schools that use Course to College & Career resources to increase FAFSA completion, the Department created a series of awards honoring FAFSA Schools of Excellence and FAFSA Schools of Achievement. To earn FAFSA School of Excellence honors, schools need to have 70% or more of their graduating class complete the FAFSA. Schools can earn FAFSA School of Excellence accolades by reaching or exceeding the FAFSA completion goal they set at the start of the year. Last year, 28 schools were named FAFSA Schools of Excellence while 46 earned FAFSA School of Achievement honors.

“The FAFSA-focused awards have created an avenue to recognize school counselors for the work they’re putting in and the success they’re having in increasing FAFSA completion,” Sampson said. “We hope to continue to use that platform to recognize them for that work that is critical to the Course to College & Career program.”

Beyond FAFSA completion, those implementing the Course to College & Career program in their school have seen its impact firsthand in the opportunities students are exploring.

“I have seen huge growth in the time I’ve been at Nevada,” Nady said. “We’ve seen an increase in the number of students going to college or postsecondary. There’s also been a huge increase in our FAFSA numbers, and Course to College has been extremely beneficial to our program.”

Course to College & Career is built to deliver those benefits by pairing statewide resources and data with regional and statewide, in-person collaboration that keeps Iowa's school counselors connected to each other and to the program’s mission for the students they serve.

For more information, visit the Department’s Course to College & Career webpage. 

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.