The Slice – Winter 2023-24

Update on PiE-Funded CTE Initiatives

PAUSD’s Career Technology Education (CTE) department—which is part of the Innovation and Agility Department, and partially funded by PiE—has been very busy lately! For this issue of The Slice, we decided to sit down with Ariane Tuomy and Rachael Kaci to learn more about the latest CTE developments.

Q: What does the PAUSD CTE department do?

A: Our team does several things! We:

• support CTE teachers so they can provide hands-on, skills based exciting electives to our students
• work with community colleges to provide dual enrollment and CTE opportunities
• provide project opportunities for students through interdisciplinary projects and collaborations
• connect students with mentors, internships, businesses, and other community partners
• use mentorship to create personalized learning for all students
• recruit and maintain quality mentors, business partners, and internship opportunities for career and curriculum programs in PAUSD such as hosting career speaker presentations.

Q: What are your roles in the CTE department, and how/why did you become involved?

Ariane: Our department is led by Dr. Jeong Choe, Assistant Superintendent for Innovation & Agile Teams. I work with CTE lead teachers at each school site, and help write/manage grants for CTE programs. I’ve worked in PAUSD for almost 15 years. I started as a history teacher and then got a masters in Educational Technology. I was born and raised in France, where I did a one-week internship as a veterinarian in 9th grade. I had always wanted to be a veterinarian, but the internship made me completely change my mind! I realized I didn’t have the constitution to do so much grief counseling. My internship experience made me realize the importance of career awareness for kids. I believe that having a variety of internships and work experiences can really help inform students about their career choices.

Rachael:  I currently lead several work-based learning programs (e.g., Advanced Authentic Research (AAR), Work Experience Education Program (WEEP), and Early Childhood Development classes) and plan district-wide job and career events. I’ve worked in PAUSD for almost 20 years. I taught Special Ed at elementary and middle schools, and at Paly. While co-teaching AAR at Paly, I met Jeong, and applied for a CTE job with the district. Now I teach AAR, WEEP, and Early Childhood Education classes, and I’ve been doing CTE full time since 2020.

CTE Goals and Career-Themed Pathways

Q: What are the CTE Department’s current goals and how have these evolved in the past few years?

A: Our department is closely aligned with the PAUSD Promise. Since Innovation is one of the five main pillars of the Promise, we aim to offer a continuum of work-based learning experiences for students all the way from elementary through high school.

We’ve also closely aligned our Career Themed Pathways with recent developments at the state level. CTE courses are organized into pathway programs, i.e., sequences of courses in a student’s area of career interest. Pathways are designed to connect high school classes to college, industry certifications, and/or a career. Each pathway program fits within one of 15 industry sectors defined by the California Department of Education. You can find more information on our website and the Secondary Pathways handbook we created.

As state and federal funding for CTE programs has increased over the past 10 years, participation in PAUSD CTE programs and classes has also increased! Every student at Gunn and Paly is required to take one year of CTE coursework in order to graduate, but the number of students completing two or more years in a Career Themed Pathway (“CTE Completers”) is rising each year. This year we’ll be giving a graduation cord and certificate to every Gunn and Paly student who’s completed at least two years in a Career Themed pathway, to honor their achievement.

Dual Enrollment, AAR, and WEEP

Q: Can you tell us about Dual Enrollment and AAR?

A: As we’ve moved towards aligning more high school CTE classes with community college classes, we now offer our students more dual enrollment opportunities than ever before. Students enrolled in dual enrollment classes earn both high school and college credit. Examples of popular dual enrollment courses are Beginning Journalism, Sports Medicine, Stage Tech 2, and AAR. Approximately 350 PAUSD high school students are currently dually enrolled at Foothill College. 

One of our most popular dual enrollment classes is Advanced Authentic Research (AAR), which pairs industry mentors with students doing in-depth research on a topic of personal or professional interest. The mentors are passionate about their professions and love to answer students’ questions, and many form close relationships with their mentees in the class. Last year just eight AAR students traveled to Foothill College to make their final class presentations; this year over 100 AAR students will present at the Foothill Research & Service Learning Symposium on May 16, which is open to the public both in person at Foothill and virtually!

Q: Can you share any anecdotes about meaningful work-based experiences your students have had?

Rachael: In my WEEP class, students have jobs for at least 3-4  hours per week, and are required to invite me to meet with them and their manager at their job site. Sometimes students are really nervous about these meetings, but they learn so much when the three of us get together! I’ve experienced many “aha moments” when students are asked to reflect on personal behaviors like being late for work 🙂, and when they have the opportunity to create personal life and career goals.

College/Career Indicator (CCI)

Q: What are some of the ways you measure your success as a department?

A: One measure of success is how we score on the California School Dashboard (Dashboard). The College/Career Indicator (CCI) measures how well we are preparing our 12th grade graduates for college and/or career. California designates high school graduates to be “prepared” on the California Dashboard College/Career Indicator (CCI) by considering a variety of outcomes and levels of attainment across multiple criteria, which include CTE courses and work-based learning measures. This past year PAUSD scored “very high” (>70%) on the CCI indicator. More information on the CCI is available here.

Certifications

Q: What are certifications? Which ones are offered at Gunn and Paly, and do many students take them?

A: One area that is poised for growth in our district is certifications. Not many students know about this opportunity, but PAUSD has a library of performance-based certifications that we offer our students. The student takes an exam, and if they get a score of over 75%, they receive a certification which includes work-based competencies that can be highlighted on their resume. 

Students who work 80 hours+ and receive a “future ready skills assessment” recommendation from a professional in the industry can get NAFTrack certification. This certification is respected by industry professionals and can increase a student’s future chances of getting a job interview or earning a higher salary. 

We offer NAFTrack certifications in Early Childhood Development, Business, and Engineering, as well as other certifications such as YouScience, OnShape (modeling and data management), and eFood Handlers. Students with an Early Childhood Development certification can get a permit to do assistant and associate-level teaching at an early childhood education center.

The certification exams are industry-level exams, and not easy to pass! We look forward to making more and more PAUSD students aware of this opportunity.

Business and Community Partnerships

Q: What are examples of some of the business and community partnerships you have made that benefit PAUSD students?

A: We’ve built a network of partnerships that offer our students work, internship, and service opportunities. Our ”Jobs, Internships, Volunteer and Summer Opportunities” slide deck is available to students, and we update it regularly.

A few of our mutually beneficial partnerships include:

• Lockheed Martin – This 40-year partnership provides a paid internship for high school students each year. 
• Verizon – This newer partnership through NAFTrack also provides a paid internship for high school students each year.
• Youth Community Service (YCS) will be partnering with us on Career Week this spring. For many students, service is a wonderful way to get hands-on work experience out in the community.
• Our Coordinator of School Safety at the District Level, Mike Jacobs, is training site-based Safety and Security Disaster Preparedness cohorts. Every school site has a safety team. Contact Mike Jacobs if interested at mijacobs@pausd.org.

Elementary and Middle School CTE

Q: Most of our CTE discussion so far has been about high school students. How about elementary and middle school students?

A: CTE is not just for high school students! In elementary, we support career exploration through our Creativity Cart program. The monthly themes are connected to different careers and pathways. Approximately 2,000 elementary students receive Creativity Carts each month! The carts are assembled by Gunn’s Early Childhood Development class, which also creates the curriculum. 

Greene, JLS, and Fletcher middle schools offer many CTE electives! In fact PiE partially funds the teaching staff for several of these, including Broadcasting, Food & Nutrition, Industrial Technology, Theatre, Design & Technology, and Marine Biology.

We also believe that field trips are an important component of CTE electives, and our department helps to develop field trip opportunities at all education levels. For example, Fletcher has a new sustainability program, so 7th and 8th grade students have visited the California Academy of Science in San Francisco to raise career awareness around sustainability.

Q: What job and career events does your department organize?

A: We have annual job fairs at Gunn and Paly in March. These are valuable opportunities for students to connect with businesses and community organizations providing jobs and internships. YCS and local employers such as In-N-Out, Great America, The City of Palo Alto, and several camps, as well as staffing companies, attend our job fairs. 

We held a Career Themed Pathways Day on January 19th, and Career Week will take place Feb 27th and 28th at Paly and the week of March 25 at Gunn. Here are the draft calendars/slidedecks for each event:

Paly’s Career Speakers Event Slidedeck (draft)

Gunn’s Career Week Calendar (draft)

Parent and Community Involvement

Q: How can parents and community members get more involved in PAUSD’s CTE activities?

A: We’re always looking for parents who can speak at Career Week, offer internships or job shadowing, or other career-related opportunities! We welcome parents and community members who would like to:

• speak at Career Week
• mentor AAR students
• host a Field Trip at their workplace
• arrange an internship or job shadowing experience
• provide other work/service/career-related opportunities to our students

If you’d like to get involved, please contact us through the “Get Involved” button on Let’s Talk!