Last August, the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) announced a cohort of 15 College and Career Readiness (CCR) Fellows focused
on, “professional development in order to grow the fellows into more effective college and career readiness leaders in their schools, communities, and states.” The past year has been a very busy one for this talented group of professionals as they
worked to effect change.
At NCAN’s 2023 National Conference in Dallas, TX in October, NCAN convened the CCR Fellows and their coaches to share their stories, success, and struggles and to celebrate their significant achievements. Fellows met monthly with their coaches individually
or in groups over the past year. Among professional development on key college and career readiness topics, Fellows also worked on plans and programming that addressed their district, school, or charter organization’s specific needs.
After a year of collaborating with their teams, coaches, and one another, NCAN’s CCR Fellows came together at Conference to share about their hard work through “learn, show, and tell presentations.” Check out a few snapshots of their projects below!
95% of Brent Johnson’s students who end up enrolling in college either, “attend the community college down the road or Ole Miss.” With this in mind, Johnson decided to take a group of students on multiple college tours across the state of Mississippi.
One of these college tours included Jackson State University, an HBCU. For some of Johnson’s students, this was their first encounter with the idea that they could attend a university like Jackson State where they might feel more welcomed and well-represented.
Although Johnson could only take a group of students on the college tours, the word got around to students, and the district’s Instagram engagement grew 20% because students on the trip would post on their stories how excited they were to step foot
on an HBCU. Johnson left the group with a piece of advice for anyone who wants to replicate this trip in their own school: plan out everything before going to your superintendent to ask for permission. How can they say no when you already
have everything ready to go? Check out his presentation here.
Mallory Essman finds that, sometimes, her students of color get "squished" in her predominantly white school district. She created a group called ESCALERA which was targeted and marketed to Latine students. Essman and her team brought in guest speakers
to share empowering stories, provide students with educational tools, and engage students’ families by hosting a lotería night centered around common phrases and words associated with the college-going process. ESCALERA took a unique approach
to helping students discover their career interests by framing career exploration activities around the question, “what challenge is there in the world that you would like to help tackle?” See more about the logistics of ESCALERA below:
2.5 days at a local university where students participated in college tours, workshops, career exploration, team building exercises, outdoor enrichment, learning reflection, and family engagement.
19 students, six staff members, and six peer mentors.
This event was free to students through a grant. Thanks to the amazing students, data collected during the event, and the staff, Essman and her partners have been approved to host this event again and have been allotted $25,000 from the district to
accomplish this.
Kimberly Merrill ended our learn, show, and tell presentations with an insightful activity. After getting four CCR fellows to volunteer, each was given a bag of materials (or lack thereof) and asked to make a bracelet with a three-letter word based on
the beads they were given. After a couple minutes of the fellows scrambling to accomplish her task, only two were able to make the bracelet according to the instructions because they had the necessary materials in their bags. One fellow had the string
to make the bracelet, but not the beads. Another had his bag so tightly closed that he spent most of the time simply trying to open it. To tie the activity to college and career readiness, Kim left us with a wonderful reminder that some schools have
the resources they need, some have more than they need, some have no resources, and some have the resources but not the time. All of this reminded us to ask ourselves “what can you do with what you don’t have? You can’t use what you don’t have as
an excuse to not do the work” (mic drop).
Other CCR learn, show, and tell presentations included:
Duane Willingham II – District 227 (IL): Implemented new systems and tools for college counseling (Naviance).
To round out the CCR fellows meeting, coach Kimberly Hanauer of UnlockED led an in-depth discussion and activity about strengths, areas of growth, and resources related to college
and career pathways. The discussion centered around the question, “How can we build a system of support for all college and career pathways?”
We sometimes forget about the “career” piece in the college and career readiness space. Hanauer led an activity challenging fellows to think about how they serve students who do not plan on immediately enrolling in college after high school. She asked
the fellows to write one strength, area of growth, and resource they might want to share in their district. Check out what they said:
Strengths: Career and technical training programs, industry-specific advisors, community partnerships with employers, trips to union sites, and trade fairs.
Areas of growth: Keeping track of students post-high school, differentiating between who wants an alternative route vs. who is lacking support and/or scared, educating parents about alternatives to college, early conversations and
planning, and career exploration.
Resources to share: Business partnership to create a pathway program, Next Steps Idaho, college partnerships for dual enrollment, inviting individuals from a union or career program to speak to students, and community workforce programs.
The CCR fellows led amazing programs and initiatives this year! NCAN is immensely grateful to them for their efforts and those of their talented coaches, Kimberly Hanauer, Kaycee Brock, and Ralph Aiello. If there is a fellow that you would like to connect
with or a specific project, program, or initiative that you are interested in learning more about, please reach out to Alessandra Cipriani-Detres at alessandra@ncan.org. NCAN will continue to look for opportunities
to grow professionals in the field through initiatives like the CCR Fellows program!
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