Click here for more information on the work of the Innovate 2.0 Committee and learn about Broadalbin-Perth’s original strategic plan, “Innovate.”
Jump to the notes from a specific table:
Table 1 Notes
- Career Clusters
- Utilize the professions embedded within the school community
- Eagle Outlet – Students facilitate stocking, managing, and overseeing the store
- Required Job Shadow experience * (possibly 11th or 12th grade)
- Career Days at the elementary level
- Hands-on activities – Interactive experiences
- Using the Media Center as a hub for experiences, guest speakers, maker space moments
- 5th-grade buddies
- Highlight career opportunities based on students’ strengths, abilities, interests
- Role of advisory – credit-bearing because you are completing a job shadow or capstone project
- Soft skills – embedded into their everyday lives
- Class in Soft Skills – 10th-11th grade students
- Creating an environment within school that expects students to demonstrate these skills
- Ownership/accountability of grades
- Mindset
- Perseverance
- Time management
- Goal setting (Health) – Lessons provided to students
- Team building activities
- Mock Interviews/Resume building
- Personal Narratives
- Focus on the transition to the next year and preparing students for the changes by focusing in on the soft skills needed
- I.e., 6th-7th grade transition
- Community Service
- Connect to certain job shadowing opportunities
- National Honor Society and Varsity Club
- Use of Passport for Good
- Setting the tone at Elementary – focus on citizenship
- Embedded into the school day
- Becomes a requirement at the high school
- Capstone project in Social Studies (seal of civic readiness)
- Local Government
- Visit a town meeting in Jr. High
- Field trip walking through the town to learn about the town (6th-7th grade)
- Attendance at town meetings
- Identify and remove obstacles (transportation)
- Visit town court
- Exposure to experiences and opportunities beyond our local community
- Commercial and residential
- Building Capacity – Providing challenging experiences for all students that promote grit/perseverance/taking risks
- Activities
- Performance
- Physical Challenge
- Hiking
- Lake activities
- Swimming lessons
- Ropes Course
- Turkey Trot
- Project that has no solution
- Activities
- Basic personal safety skills – start at the younger level
- Swimming
- CPR
- Babysitting
- Specific Grade-Level Transitions
- 5th Grade
- Provide a book talk to 4th grade
- Typing
- Addressing and writing a letter
- 10th-11th
- Career Aptitude Test
- Presentations to help them narrow down their focus
- 6th-7th
- RWB Band
- 5th Grade
Table 2 Notes
- All students participate in a college-level course
- Even kids that would not think so, to set a goal to try a collegiate-level course. Sometimes they are scared to try, but realistically may be able to do.
- Driven a lot if students have a predetermined mindset that they will be or have an interest in going to college.
- Students need to face an academic challenge
- Keep → Business / Personal Finance as a requirement for seniors
- Just being in the workforce sometimes the importance was missed and the workforce had to go back to be taught the skill.
- Mock Interviews
- Are we requiring students to participate in this in Personal Finance?
- Communication piece is important
- Learning how to speak about yourself (Strengths/forcing them to practice/examples)
- Written applications and resume submission
- Strengthsfinder and personal assessments (How are our students answering questions about themselves?)
- Video Interview (Interviewing remotely)
- Computer etiquette
- School community involvement
- All students need to participate in a club/sport
- How many students are not participating?
- Keyboarding/Typing
- Needs to start earlier than 6th grade
- Evolution of Computers class
- Where we started and our advancement
- Written communication
- Email (Virtual)
- Written
- Community Outreach
- Personalized letters (handwritten)
- Thank you letters, gratitude
- Formalized stuffing of envelopes
- Incorporate Personal Finance prior to Personal Finance & Business in 8th grade
- Finances/taxes/budgeting at the grade 5-6 transition
- Familiarize them with the language
- Question/Answer format
- Personal Finance should be offered for grades 9-12 not strictly grade 12
- Offer Career and Financial Management for grade 6 into grade 7
- Adjust Home and Careers to offer Career and Financial budgeting
- Half Year Financial Management course for Grade 7 students
- Personalized job exploration in grade 7
Table 3 Notes
- Grade 10/11 might be a little too late to decide if CTC is right for them
- Perhaps 9th grade is a better timeframe; work in that 10th grade year to determine which pathway
- Don´t put emphasis on what they want to do with their life in 9th grade, but have communications with faculty and staff to understand options
- Career exposure is important early on – 9th grade vs. something later
- Spending a day job shadowing
- Community partnerships – exposed to choices
- ¨Be a teacher for a day¨ – understand curriculum planning, time management, teaching, etc.
- Something B-P can provide without assistance
- Milestone – students need to learn to swim
- Not just pre-K; should be longer
- Important being close to the lake
- Milestone – Boater safety course is a great current offering
- Milestones – Full CPR (not just hands only), first aid, babysitter courses
- Anything related to personal safety
- Life skills courses would be helpful
- Consumer science teaches basic skills like laundry, cooking, etc.
- Actual hands-on skills – changing oil, fixing leaking faucets, etc.
- Social skills are somewhat lost nowadays, groups like Cub Scouts are great
- Cursive is important! Learn how to sign your name
- Experience checklist – exposure to the arts
- Go to professional play
- Go to an art museum
- Partnership with Proctors or the Palace
- Group discounts/tickets
- Understanding free passes to museums from libraries, etc
- Understanding business rules, what to wear to interviews and major life events, etc.
- Middle schoolers do not understand how to communicate effectively face-to-face with peers and adults
- Social cues not fully understood
- How to speak on the phone
- Public speaking – older classes practice with younger grades, exposure
- It’s more important to be uncomfortable to learn to push through
- Scaffolding the skill – starting young and building it
- Learn how to effectively lodge complaints to businesses
- Being professional
- Issue with knowing how to communicate problems or politely and effectively disagree with one another without animosity
- Not debate per se, but just respectful disagreement
- Graciousness – students can learn to create a thank you note to an important business/person/donor to school, learn to address envelopes and send the letters
- A lot of skills cannot be delayed; they have to be built in every year and built upon as grade levels progress
- Divisive language and thought patterns don´t lead to respectful dialogue
- Civility needs to be supported – not everyone is BFFs but you can always be polite
- Rumor mills can spin out of control and escalate issues
- Can we teach basic mediation skills?
- Are there benchmarks at certain grade levels? Equitable but perhaps not equal – everyone is different
- Can we teach basic mediation skills?
- 5-6 transition is a big one
- Job shadowing – utilizing careers/professions at B-P
- Understanding roles and benefits
- Packages – 401Ks, health insurance, tuition assistance, being able to retire at 55 (for example)
- Don’t just focus on money; you need to enjoy what you do
- People have different career paths prior to teaching and those experiences can help interest students
- Understanding roles and benefits
- Take advantage of extracurriculars, internships, etc to understand what interests you
- Several focus on courses that have college credits
- Is there a tool that can help shepherd students to the right interest areas, or support their interest by sending them to classes that they will use in their chosen field?
- Can we do a summer program that doesn’t affect students’ class load but they could explore a career or job opportunity?
- Could you expand and maybe one day also teach business skills, do workshops, skill training, etiquette, etc.
- Job shadowing during school or on a weekend to meet with students so they can get a better feel of the requirements
Table 4 Notes
- Specific capstone seminars or projects or activities
- Improv
- Orientation
- Team building
- Spontaneous
- Public Speaking – ½ year
- Debate requirement (ELA curriculum)
- Life skills
- Changing tires
- Laundry
- Riding bike
- Swimming
- Wellness Day structure, but can sign up – choices sign-ups for hitting.
- Recognizing others, valuing others EARLY
- A PATTERN of targeting *entering curriculum*
- Capstone project at the transitions
- Voting activities (citizenship)
- Capstones: focus on soft skills, work-load management
- Questions about activities vs. forced
- Capstone (early elementary): 4th into 5th Debate
- Specific Capstone: Counseling mentor/apprentice (matching to interests), mock trial
Table 5 Notes
- 4th-5th
- Teaching styles
- Transitions – adapt to change
- “Everything has something in common”
- Adding in the change over time SLOWLY
- Mentoring
- Big brother or sister
- Leadership skills
- Opportunities to advance into accelerated courses in later grades
- Time to job-shadow
- More exposure to hands-on learning
- Guidance counselor – building relationships
- Social
- New peers
- Establishing acceptance of others
- New experiences that promote growth
- Special area electives to push students to physical challenges
- Build confidence
- Taking risks to find limits
- Teaching GRIT
- Capstone projects
- Collaborate
- Connections
- Work-based learning opportunities
- Soft skills are needed
Table 6 Notes
- Performing for an audience/public speaking
- Lose everything and recover
- Supervised risks
- Feel failure
- “You’re not dead; you learn and grow”
- Physical element
- Have a project that they fail and rebuild/recreate
- Leads to gratification
- Need for “facilitator,” not “teacher”
- Given a big problem in a seminar
- 6th to 7th can be a “scary” transition
- Have mentors in elementary school; then that’s almost taken away
- A lot of kids are afraid to be wrong/scared of failure
- Some physical element to it – push and develop
- Include in PE
- Learn how to accept risks and not be embarrassed
- How do you value yourself?
- How do you find/develop a healthy relationship?
- How do you make good choices for and in your future?
- Projects/ideas connect and continue throughout
- Career cluster assessment younger
- Trying those new things
- Various cluster assessments for exposure
- Career talks by cluster
- Exposing to new forms (i.e. Academy projects)
- Collaborative art project
- Academy mentoring with PLTW/shadowing
- “School-wide” project
- Elementary classes could mix up a bit; work with different teachers
- Collaboration
- “Class swaps” at a younger age
- Maybe 4th grade swaps for one class, possibly?
- Exposing students to various teaching styles
- Address the letter so it can be mailed to you
- Mapping out your life skills and self-evaluate each year
- Start school a day early for transition grades on their own
- Open up for more parent involvement
- You don’t want them to check out
- Include parents in these capstones
- Celebrations, big nights (i.e. public speaking)
- Public speaking at a younger age – i.e. play, drama
- Bring older kids in to build that community
- Sports teams, band, more peer interactions
- It’s OK to have more parental involvement earlier
- Don’t limit things like field trips to just two parents per class
- Teacher reach out to students (or parents) over the summer
- i.e. Advisory teacher could reach out
- Personalized
- Start public speaking small, then grow
- Some form of community service project or hours in senior high
Table 7 Notes
- Students send thank-you notes to members of the community
- Personalization of what we do is getting lost
- Addressing envelopes
- Grade 7 and grade 9 – start a day early to become familiar with the school
- Bonding on the first day for students
- Seniors are mentors for the freshman class
- Seniors have to apply to be a mentor, the mentor can teach the CharacterStrong (mentors can be trained over the summer)
- Parent engagement on field trips
- There should not be a cap on how many guardians can attend; now we have disengaged parents
- Needs to have a structure for this though
- School lacks parent involvement; what happened to this?
- Ensure parents are involved in the transitions
- Transition years start a day earlier to become familiar with the new building, other changes
- Transition years, the class could do a barbecue or something similar for the teachers; parents are involved also
- Morning program for a sense of community
- Discuss celebrations, birthdays, children learn expectations, etc.
- Celebrating milestones, accomplishments
- We need to teach the skills – respect, boundaries, etc.
- We cannot assume these skills are being taught at home
- Start college trips during junior high and elementary school
- Have community members or parents come in and discuss their jobs, once a month on a designated day/career day
- Graduation walk through the schools
- Have multiple pep rallies; fall, winter, and spring sports
- Brings team spirit and community together; marching band, dance team, etc.
- Transition years – create excitement
- Have the band play during these years; have the band greet the students at the door
- Grades 6 to 7 – have the sports teams available to talk with the students about the different sports
- Peer-to-peer conversations – students can read to other students
- Open house days during the summer also
- Peer mediation – more formal mediation
- Maybe if older students are interested in becoming a counselor or social worker, human services, can they have discussions/mediation with younger students
- Solving interpersonal conflicts – a progression
- Use less scaffolds as the students get older
- Use PBIS to assist with this
- Restorative circles/mediation
- Community service at each grade level
- Students need to see the importance of our community as a whole and giving back to the community
- Academic celebrations and events
- For example, Battle of the Books; co-curricular activities and achievements they are part of; robotics; art
- Facilitation and modeling of morals and values; respect is mutual
- In-house job shadowing, resume writing, mock interviews
- Having conversations starting in kindergarten regarding careers
Table 8 Notes
- Career opportunities – knowledge of them, need to know
- LinkedIn, Jobs, Indeed
- Progression and different opportunities you do
- Capstone projects
- Knowing community – exposing to different jobs
- See what’s in community
- As part of a milestone
- Experiences rather than community service hours
- Guided in beginning, but then choose the opportunities
- Connection between gaps
- Extracurriculars
- Availability – a lot
- Motivation
- Key Club – provides volunteer opportunities
- How to motivate students?
- How to expand on the technologies they already have?
- Coming back to area with experiences, and how they utilize their experiences
- Research
- Start early?
- Good for college
- Course selection and pathways
- Freshman year
- 10th-11th grade transition
- More personalized selection
- CTC, in the field/on the job experience, internship
- Some students bulk up
- 6th-7th grade transition
- Some familiarity (building) – big!
- With older students
- Close proximity
- Excitement and get more, but get settled first
- 8th-9th grade transition
- A lot of pressure
- Equity
- Make or break
- Assistance maybe
- See a lot of opportunities
- Cool, want to try everything
- Required volunteer hours – no longer
- Getting older
- Finding experiences more, then choice
- Wellness Day
- Life skills – can expect or have students taking these courses, or hiring one teacher
- Changing a tire
- Cooking
- Have a life skills day – life skills that they can select, have certain opportunities before they graduate, without making a policy or class they have to take
- Balance a checkbook or bake a turkey
- Have a woodworking class; doesn’t fit some schedules for those interested
- Home economics class not really continued
- Should be continued into high school
- Saturday Scholars – Texas
- Teaches students what to do, mentors to teach students what they want to do
- Every Saturday come back, gravitate to certain people and careers
- People that came in were volunteering, parents and everyone
- Craft fair of crafts
- Maybe even do a field trip, on the weekend, don’t feel singled out for being different-academically
- Struggle in high school and flourish in college, not really dissecting what and who students are
- Need to see students as what they are, not label them
- Find like-minded people to do what you want to do
- Life skills – can expect or have students taking these courses, or hiring one teacher
- Empowering to be somewhere people want to learn; it builds you up
- Difference between AP and regular classes
- Regular class of not wanting to be there
- Everyone is on the same page
- Accelerated kids should take different classes
- Debate
- Public speaking
- Read books relevant
- Application!
- Accelerated classes drive people, and the competition for some people
- Different people drift toward different people
- The regulars are the people you are going to work with someday
- What are you going to take from your experiences
- Regular getting to boss level
- Help someone in boring level accelerate, more purpose in life, help someone struggling to get somewhere
- For 9-12 students, invite families and treat it as a college fair
- Schedule a shadow day
- Find a friendly face
- Student mentoring younger student
- Don’t always need to create a program, add to it, or change it for yourself
- Mentoring students, start building values
- Maybe start capstone project there
- 7th grade, what is a value, what does this mean to me
- Help younger kids
- Your values rub off on them
- Maybe in high school take an interpersonal relationships class
- How do you intersect with others and deal with these relationships
- Check and balance, advanced student come back and assess values — they can change
- Find a counselor that meets your needs and interests
- Something students can grasp to
- Needs to be the sun that guides students
- About education who will keep positive
- Parents want kids to come home excited about school
- Extracurricular stuff
- Policy years ago, students had to be in a club
- BOE supportive of clubs; clubs for everything
- For foreign languages
- Get involved in the school community, and get involved in the community they move into
- Get to job, some people are good at and some aren’t
- Get good at your job
- Sense of community
- Get good at communicating with people and the content of your job
- Communicate numbers
- Happens everywhere you go
- Some people are elite and some aren’t
- Kids can recognize real more than anyone else, have good impression of character of people
- Take your favorite people, and learn the characteristics that you like
- Ex. easy to talk to
- Learn how to take those skills, think about what makes people good communicators
- Some students are good at communicating because they’re involved with the community
- Doing something you enjoy doing is important
- Fishing club, a lot of students interested
- How much the school district is into doing what the schools want to do
- Important to cover more kids
- Set these skills from a young age (START YOUNG)
- Doing something you enjoy doing is important
- What can you do with younger kids to help them be good at communicating with people
- Take them out of their element/comfort zone, build a relationship with the out-of-the-element touch
- Get kids more socialized with each other
- Think sending pics like Snap is communicating
- Communication patterns
- FaceTime anymore?
- College
- Dedicated to work and learning what college is and becoming an adult, living on own, communicating with others
- Still learn and have fun, BALANCE
- Semester one rough
- Switching majors
- Not necessarily going to go to job you thought your degree was going to be