Understanding Why ACP MATTERS We recently had the opportunity to connect with Robin Kroyer-Kubicek, Career Pathways Education Consultant from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to further understand the status and implementation of Academic and Career Planning (ACP) at the state level.
What is the current status of ACP implementation?
As of December 1, 2015, the state has mandated that by the 2017-2018 school year, every school board will be required to offer academic and career planning services to grades 6 – 12. Currently, there are 25 school districts piloting Academic and Career Planning (ACP) services. A career exploration and planning software has been selected and will be available to all schools, at no cost, once the contract is complete. DPI is working with the pilot schools to provide guidance and professional development to effectively implement ACP’s.
How will ACP’s benefit students?
ACP’s will provide students with an integrated, coordinated approach that reaches EVERY student. Through engaging, age appropriate conversations with educators and parents and activities during middle school and high school, students will begin to think about their interests, set goals, connect classroom learning to those goals and explore plans for post-secondary success. Emerging research shows that Academic and Career Planning services make schools more personalized and improve various student outcomes. As students become more competent in self-exploration and career exploration and planning, they become more motivated to attend school, become confident learners, actively set goals and get better grades.
Kroyer-Kubicek further noted, “Equipping families to be ‘informed consumers’ of education and training will lead to students successfully achieving their goals.”
Why are ACP’s important to the business community? The understanding of ACP services is critical to the business community since students will have much more direct interaction and exposure to business and industry. As noted by Kroyer-Kubicek, “By partnering with schools, employers are able to open up their organization to teach students, and their parents, about the current world of work and success in it. Schools can no longer be all to all students. Schools need to help support these additional opportunities.”
From the state level, why do you find the adoption and implementation of ACP’s critical to the success of Wisconsin students? ACP’s are directly infused within State Superintendent Tony Ever’s Agenda 2017, a culmination of initiatives with the goal that all Wisconsin students are to be equipped and prepared for college and career readiness upon high school graduation. The DPI team sees ACP as the vehicle that can work to accomplish a vision for college and career readiness for students.
To learn more about ACP, watch the video at: https://youtu.be/tpXQIKzgya0
Fox Cities Business Spring 2016
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