2024 CTE Works! Summit

We noticed not all of our students were engaging in our larger career exploration events such as Career Navigator and Career Expo. Students who were not attending the larger events are our special education kids. We set out to find out why and how to correct the problem.

Focus Area: Expose all secondary learners to CTE and help them identify postsecondary pathways, specifically through the Uniquely Abled Academy.

The Uniquely Abled Academy (UAA) is a program offered through South Central College (SCC). UAA is a program designed to provide individuals with autism with the hands-on training and high-tech skills needed to prepare for a career as a computer numerical control (CNC) operator. Offered by SCC’s Customized Workforce Education division, UAA programs were developed nationally through The Uniquely Abled Project. This program isn’t well known in our South Central Perkins districts. Our goal is to connect with each district to explain UAA and provide some hands-on learning opportunities for interested districts. This could include school-sponsored campus visits, open house-style events for students and their families, and UAA representatives visiting our secondary classrooms.

A planning team was created and included:

• Holle Spessard, SCSC Special Education Director
• Gwenn Wolters, SCSC CTE Coordinato
• Lynn Waterbury, SCC Navigator Assistant
• Kristin Underwood, SCC Director of Customized Workforce Education

The planning team created an outline of the event, identified dates for the Campus Visits, found industry partners, created appropriate language to go out on the invite to districts, created a survey for the participating districts, and implemented that plan.

Throughout this project, we served 12 school districts that brought 96 students to explore career fields at SCC and at one of our 3 industry partner sites.

Of the 12 participating districts, we received 7 survey responses. Our take aways from the survey results:
1.The registration process was very easy, no complaints.
2.Campus Experience Feedback
a.Great interactions, loved being able to spend more time in the CTE area, very welcoming and
friendly, less intimidating for students due to the smaller group size.
b.“It was awesome! I've attended many career days throughout my career and this is hands
down one of the best I've attended. I loved having the small groups and targeted to our specific
students with different learning needs. I would absolutely attend again!”
3.Industry Site Feedback
a.It was great to learn about someplace that we had no idea existed. It would be fun to see
two industry sites next time.
b.Very impressive, students thought it was cool.
c.It was good, felt a little rushed at the end of the day.
d.Some parts of the tour were hard to hear.
e.We liked seeing things “in action”.
4.Feedback from Students
a.Students seemed excited for something related to college and job goals. There were a lot of positive comments. Students thought it was worthwhile, “it was really good to see that some more accommodating examples of higher education exists!”

Our next step for sustainability is to provide this opportunity next year as a part of our career exploration outreach in the South Central Perkins Consortium. Funding has been set aside for transportation.

After this session you'll learn:

1. How to engage special education teachers, coordinators, and students in rural districts.
2. How to motivate industry partners to participate.
3. How to inspire college faculty to participate in the exploration.