School-to-Career of Wake County
School-to-Career is a system. ...
School-to-Career of Wake County is a systemic effort to infuse relevant and realistic experiences into classroom curriculum.
School-to-Career is a collaboration ...
School-to-Career of Wake County is a collaborative effort between the business community and the school system to enhance curriculum and provide additional learning opportunities for both teachers and students.
School-to-Career is for all students ...
School-to-Career of Wake County is a countywide, K-12 initiative to prepare all students to be career focused and globally competitive.
The mission of School-to-Career is to ...
Prepare every student to make knowledgeable career choices through academic rigor and work-based learning experiences. This requires a systematic, comprehensive, community-wide effort.
Hot Topics
Interview with WRAL's Ken Smith, ACTE National Image Award Winner on Career Tech Talk, May 2008.
Job Shadowing and Internships on School TV.
Career-focused summer programs at local colleges. Educational, yet fun programs for our middle and high school students.
Wake County's Business Alliance Initiative is featured in the Business Alliances Improve Career Awareness (PDF 204 KB) article in the November/December 2007 issue of Techniques magazine. Techniques is the national publication for ACTE (Association for Career and Technical Education).
What We Are Learn our philosophies, activities and successes.
Get Involved Find out where you fit in.
School-to-Career (STC) is an initiative - a philosophy - a method of delivering curriculum to students that links what students learn in the classroom to what they will do in their lives after graduation. Children learn better when information is made relevant, and STC ensures that relevancy occurs by linking their schoolwork to workplace realities.
School-to-Career links the world of school to the world of work by supporting school-based activities such as classroom speakers, tutors and mentors, professional development and real world activities infused into the standard course of study through collaboration between members of the business community and classroom teachers.
Wake County's pursuit of an ambitious academic achievement goal has focused attention on motivating students to excel academically in school and to make wise career choices. School-to-Career directly reinforces the school system's work towards its high academic achievement goals: more students at or above grade level, fewer students dropping out of school, and more students going on to postsecondary education or training.
Mission
The mission of Wake County School-to-Career is to prepare every student to make responsible, productive career choices and manage the challenges brought about by accelerated change in the workplace through school-based, work-based, and connecting activities.
This requires a systematic, comprehensive, community-wide effort to give all young people the opportunity to:
- Prepare for meaningful careers by pursuing a clearly identifiable, accessible, and attractive pathway into the workplace,
- Receive top quality, integrated academic and career/technical instruction,
- Gain the foundation skills to pursue postsecondary education and other lifelong learning, and
- Experience work-based learning while in school.
Mission Statements Important to School-to-Career of Wake County
School-to-Career Involves:
- Teachers - who work to integrate relevance into the core curriculum and add academic rigor throughout all classes.
- School System Administrators - who make it possible for school-to-career activities to take place at their schools and in the community for their students.
- Students - who participate in career fairs, job shadowing, internships, and other school-to-career activities.
- Business People and Employer Representatives - who serve as a resource for teachers and administrators to support School-to-Career activities such as job shadowing, internships, and classroom speakers.
- Parents - who see the benefit of their children participating in school to career activities
Essential Principles of School-to-Career
- Promote high standards of academic learning and performance for all young people.
- Incorporate industry-valued standards that help inform curricula and lead to respected, portable credentials.
- Provide opportunities for contextual learning.
- Help to create smaller, more effective learning communities.
- Expand opportunities for all young people and expose them to a broad array of career opportunities.
- Provide program continuity between K-12 and postsecondary education and training.
- Provide work-based learning that is directly tied to classroom learning.
- Assist employers in providing high quality work-based learning opportunities.
- Connect young people with supportive adults, mentors, and other role models.
Benefits to Employers
STC programs benefit employers by providing a direct communication channel providing the ability to affect change within the curricula thus insuring the continuation of a quality employee talent pool from which to draw. In addition to assuring current and portable credentials for the student, the employer will directly affect the training of more highly skilled and educated entry-level employees. A secondary benefit to this will result in lower training costs for the employer.
Benefits to Students
STC programs help students choose a career goal that leads to a good job in our community. Students have multiple outcome options of enrolling in a four-year college or a community college, or entering the workforce directly from high school. Students earn higher starting salaries, because they are more productive.
Benefits to Teachers
STC programs help motivate students who might not otherwise be successful in high school. Dropout rates and discipline problems decline, math and English scores improve, and attendance increases for participating students.
Benefits to the Community
STC programs provide an instrument for linking and partnering schools with the community at large. By establishing these linkages, we provide support in strengthening relationships between all students and community members from all walks of life. These linkages and partnerships serve as the foundation for:
- Improving the lives of people of all ages
- Strengthening individuals, families, neighborhoods, and communities
- Building awareness of the needs of the community and the greater society
- Increasing cooperation, respect, and understanding of people in the community, and people of other nations and cultures
- Increasing community involvement, community outreach, and global solidarity
What is this worth?
We cannot quantify the goodwill and positive working relationships between our schools and community, nor the program improvements or information sharing that results from these relationships. We can try to quantify the countless hours of volunteer work, however. For example, this past year business professionals devoted a half-day of their time to provide job shadowing opportunities for over 4200 Wake County students. Based upon an average consulting rate of $50/hour, the total business investment in job shadowing alone is estimated at $210,000.
Wake County Public School System programs are staffed and offered without regard to race, gender, age, color, religion, national origin, citizenship status, political affiliation, or disability.