Matters, where we take a closer look at various topics in the world of education and break down how it matters to you.

I'm your host, Kelsey Starks, and this month we're going to take a closer look at how the choices students make in high school can help jumpstart their career or post-secondary education experience.

You know, there are a lot of options out there for Kentucky high school students, including traditional academic, career and technical education.

Often referred to as CTE, and other specialized programs that blend high school and post-secondary learning like dual credit and Advanced Placement options.

We're going to discuss it all with our panel of experts, who are here to answer some of your questions about these options, and we want to introduce to you Amanda Jerome is the college and career readiness coordinator for the Empower U program in Davis County Public Schools, one of the largest dual credit programs in the state.

Dr.

Nickie Cobb is the vice president of academic affairs and chief academic officer at Jefferson Community and Technical College.

Matt Chaliff is in the Office of Career Technical Education with the Kentucky Department of Education, and Lisa Slaven is an instructor for jobs for America's Graduates, or JAG, in Kentucky, and the former District Transition Readiness Facilitator in Hardin County.

So we want to thank you all so much for being here and sharing your expertise today.

As always, there's a lot of information out there.

There are a lot of resources out there about this topic, so we're going to try to break it all down.

First of all, let's start with the idea that although there is a lot of focus on this early career readiness, it doesn't necessarily mean that students have to choose what they're going to do early in their in their school career, right.

So, Matt, I want to start with you from a Kentucky department or the Department of Education standpoint.

Why have these types of pathways available to students at a young age?

>> So the earlier we can get a student in a pathway and thinking about a career helps them do exploration and figure out what is that career involve, what are the educational requirements?

What's the ultimate opportunities for that job?

What's the pay scale look like?

And then hopefully they figure out something they want.

But maybe just as important, they figure out something they're not interested in.

So a student figures out that being a doctor involves blood.

And I don't like blood.

And so I rule out a pre-med pathway.

And that's okay.

Sometimes it's just as important to rule things out as to rule things in.

But ultimately we want them as they start, as they get a little older and start to find that focus, then they have that buy in and they say, I want to be X career.

And so that gives them focus throughout their high school experience and helps them take advantage of some of these other opportunities to get a head start on preparing for that career.

>> Yeah, I think a lot of us parents to this, these types of options weren't available to most of us growing up.

So this is fairly new in that way that our students are choosing these pathways fairly early.

How early are we talking that you all recommend choosing a pathway?

>> Well, we're looking at exploration as early as middle school, so six, seventh and eighth grade to start those conversations about what does medical even look like or we're talking about marketing earlier, what does what does marketing even involve.

And so student starts to have those conversations.

But then hopefully in high school they actually choose a pathway and start narrowing that focus down.

>> So when we're talking about high school let's talk about credits and graduation requirements.

What do parents need to know overall about requirements?

Credits to graduate high school?

What's the requirement?

>> So the graduation requirements the state Board of Education determines graduation requirements.

And local boards have some say in that as well to add to that.

So that's going to differ a little bit from every district.

I'm not sure what Davis County looks like, but then that.

So parents need to be aware of what their local policy is and what their local board has said in terms of graduation requirements.

>> And so Amanda is part of Empower You, which is, as we mentioned, one of the largest dual credit programs in the state.

Explain how that dual credit partnership works there with the Owensboro Community and Technical College.

>> So Owensboro Community and Technical College is our largest provider of dual credit in Davis County.

We have about 1260 students that participate in dual credit, whether they are in our buildings, taking those classes with our own teachers that are certified through the college, or we send a lot of students over to the community college to take classes, whether that's half days or full days.

So we offer everything from an engineering academy, a life science academy, an agriculture academy, early college, which is associate's degree students.

And then we just have some general dual credit and technical students that are kind of dabbling and seeing if it's the right fit for them.

>> And similar in Jefferson Community and Technical College, Nikki and the broader Kctcs program, how does that work and who does this apply to?

Is it available to all high schoolers?

>> Yeah, it is.

If there's a high school in Kentucky that's not already plugged into dual credit, they can certainly explore that.

Kctcs serves over 400 high schools across the state.

And this exploration concept, I think, is really important because you are kind of figuring out what you want to do when you grow up and when you think about exploration.

Kctcs currently offers just over a thousand different offerings for dual credit students, anywhere from college algebra to blueprint reading for welding.

So it really gives them a chance to kind of try to figure out what they want to do when they grow up.

It does start as early as ninth grade.

They can start taking CTE.

Those career technical education classes for credit.

And I think it's important as a parent that you think about every credit counts.

And so most of our credits will transfer to our four year partners.

So you can get a head start.

>> Yeah.

That's amazing.

So a lot of people talk about dual credit.

But there's also advanced Placement classes in high school.

What's the difference between these two and what should parents know about that.

>> I don't mind to refer to that one.

So with Empower You, we do put some focus on our Advanced Placement program as well.

And Davis County Public Schools.

When we have recruitment nights, we start as early as eighth grade, usually recruiting and kind of talking to parents and students about what the options are as they explore their interest in high school.

And so we partner with our AP program, where students and parents can also find out if AP is the right fit for them.

So one of the main differences with AP versus dual credit is a student would sit in a college level class in AP, and then they would take an exam at the end.

And then if they score a three, 4 or 5 on the exam across the nation, different universities and colleges would award them credit based on that exam score.

In a dual credit classroom, a student would earn a grade just as the same as they might like in a high school classroom, but that grade would also go on a college transcript not only on their high school transcript.

>> So what are sort of the pros and cons there with AP?

Obviously, you've got to do well on the test to get the credit, right?

>> Correct.

>> Yes.

And what would you say about dual credit.

>> Well, and I think AP you made a good point.

If you're not a great test taker, you've taken a whole academic year to learn the content down to one exam, which dual credit you're going to be in a semester instead of year long for most cases.

And it's a regular academic class.

So you have participation quizzes, exams and papers.

So you can kind of spread out the stress for a student.

>> Sure.

Yeah.

One of the.

>> Conversations we continually have with parents, especially around dual credit, is that Kentucky does offer dual credit scholarship.

And so students are able to get multiple courses throughout their high school career that the state of Kentucky actually pays for for them.

And so when we have that conversation with parents, it's about it is saving time and money.

When you're utilizing dual credit and dual credit scholarships that are available here in the state of Kentucky.

And we have tried to break down this concept of like college ready versus career ready, because obviously everybody's going to college with the hopes of getting a degree to do the career that they want to do.

So we try to talk about career pathways for everybody, whether they're wanting to go straight into the workforce or if they are college bound, because many of our pathways, whether it's health, science, engineering, they lead into college degrees that you can do as well.

So we try to talk to parents about it's free.

So it gives them an opportunity to, you know, take that next step and take a little bit higher level course.

But even if they're not intending currently to go into college, a lot of our community partners will tell you they partner with like Ectc is local for us.

A lot of our employers will send their employees over there to get training on new equipment, or to get them training for promotions and different jobs that they're starting to offer.

So while some students may be thinking, I want to go directly into the workforce, we remind them that that job in the workforce may require you to take some additional training.

And so having that dual credit background while they were in high school makes that transition as a student or as an employee a little bit easier for them.

>> Yeah, I think you bring up a really good point, particularly, like I said, with a lot of us parents who didn't have this option when we were growing up, it was either you're going to college or you're going to a trade school, or you're learning something like welding, as one of you mentioned.

And so it's really a change in minds that every student is going to do something after high school.

And the question is the pathway that gets them there.

And a lot of times those CTE careers are not just technical careers or trades or whatever.

We were brought up kind of in the past thinking, right.

>> Yeah.

And one of the things I think it's important, whether a student is looking at AP or dual credit, is the sooner the student figures out what they want to do, then looking at what courses are actually going to count toward that degree, or if they're done, certificate through kctcs, what's going to count toward that?

Because it's fine to take dual credit history, but if you don't need dual credit history for your degree pathway, then maybe you should refocus your efforts.

And so it's it's just important.

The sooner they can do that and then start thinking, if I'm going this direction, this might be something for me to look at.

>> And as you mentioned to the financial aspect of this, I mean, we just did a whole program on college financial aid.

And if you can get some of those courses out of the way in high school, that's huge.

And most high schools offer this, right.

>> Our teaching pathway is one of my favorite examples of that.

As an educator myself, we have four classes that we offer and they are all dual credit.

So the students are graduating high school with not only four college classes that the state of Kentucky helped pay for for them, but they're also getting experience in the classroom.

So when they go into college, they are making an educated decision, saying, I've already tried this, and I know this is something that I want to do.

Or like we talked about earlier, I know this is something that I don't want to do, but they're able to go directly into college already having those experiences and solidifying their decisions, but also getting some of the courses out of the way so that they can graduate early and with less student loan debt.

So it's a win win for everybody.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

And I know there in Hardin County, too, part of what you do is the co-op and internship and apprenticeship program.

So talk a little bit about that.

>> We really want students to come out not only educated on the careers and the technical as well as the soft skills behind, you know, employability, but we also want them to have some sort of work experience.

So again, even if the career pathway that they're doing isn't what they end up doing for the rest of their lives, they can earn industry certifications that, you know, I tell parents all the time, it's not a fun little school award.

It is a real industry recognized license to do that job.

So like our health science field, if they get certified as a phlebotomist, they are going to then go get experience through co-op and work based learning.

As a phlebotomist, it makes them way more employable when they go out into the work field because they are certified and they have experience.

I mean, going into an interview, they're going to knock it out of the water, and if they decide that's not something they want to do for the rest of their life, they have at least got the certification and the ability to get that job while they figure out what they want to do, because a lot of students want to be working after they graduate high school.

And it's easier to figure out what you want to do with your life when you're getting experiences in the workplace, as opposed to just maybe sitting at home or taking college classes and not knowing what you want to do.

The work experience allows them to kind of see parts of the job that they like, learn about other careers, network.

It really helps them make that decision.

So Hardin County took it upon ourselves.

We love the idea of, you know, we partner with Kctcs to do all of the dual credit.

We have our pathways for kids that want to go straight into the workforce.

And then we also became an apprenticeship employer.

So we still connect students with other employers so they can apprentice doing different jobs.

All of the trades that we all know about plumbing, electric, we have those pathways and we connect them with unions and employers to do apprenticeship models.

But we ourselves have become an apprentice employer, which means that students can start their apprenticeship while they're in high school.

And KDE can probably tell you this a little bit more about it.

It is their TRACK program, so they start their apprenticeship hours while they're in high school and then continue them after graduation.

So kind of like the same thing with college.

It's allowing them to get a head start so they can complete college earlier.

This allows them to start their apprenticeship and get some hours done while they're in high school, so they'll actually complete their apprenticeship earlier and be able to go on and do their trades.

>> Yeah, and this is the whole point with KDE, right, is to.

Absolutely get them into those careers.

>> Yeah.

Our track apprenticeship program is a national model.

And as she was saying, basically, if you think about a career like electrician, you have to have so many work hours to get a journeyman to be able to go into that and actually then start working.

And so just like that, to to get to start doing that in high school and maybe have that half behind you before you ever graduate, let that student get out into the workforce so much quicker and hit the ground running in that career field.

So that's been a huge thing that our office has put a ton of time and energy into, is building that apprenticeship program.

And for those students, particularly in the trades, but also in health care and other fields, and there's a lot of opportunities for that to get that experience.

And then, you know, she was talking about being a phlebotomist.

If you get that certificate and you go to med school, you can work as a phlebotomist while you're doing that.

And so there's just so many opportunities with these industry certs.

We had over 16,000 students in state of Kentucky last year, earned an industry cert that they can take with them, and that's a credential that's going to follow them forever.

And whether they do that or not, they have that to fall back on.

But maybe to work part time or to do that while they do another program.

>> So yeah, and I feel like to not to keep going back to how it was, but that was a lot of the things that we all did in our first job.

You know, they used to tell you like your your first job is where you figure out if you really like being in an office or you don't like being in an office and, and how to work with others.

Are you a leader?

You know, those kind of things.

And because of the way the workforce is changing when it comes to technology and everything else that's happening right now, I think it's so important to start that early.

And if you can get that done in high school, you're that much more prepared after the fact.

Amanda, I want to ask you about some of the success stories that you've seen just from the Empower U program and how this works in the real world.

>> Well, I've been in this role for ten years, so I've seen a lot of successes.

And of course, I'm very proud of all of our students that have graduated with associate's degrees and all of these accolades.

But I really resonate with the students that enroll in these trade programs and find that passion in, maybe discover that there was something exciting happening in high school that they could get, you know, access to when they're a junior and senior, particularly the students that are enrolled in, like our HVAC program and electrical things like that.

And then to kind of piggyback on the TRACK conversation, we are partnering with the Owensboro Home Builders Association to build a program that's focused on construction trades.

And so this is our first semester doing this, but we've actually put ten students out into the workforce in home builders careers.

And so they're getting that hands on experience with these folks that are running the home builders.

It's just been very exciting.

And so we already have another 10 to 12 students that we're looking to place in the spring semester.

So I just think going back to the concept of showing them what's out there and what might interest them, and to kind of spark that interest.

It's just very exciting to see.

>> And that community partnership that comes with that.

You know, you have so many employers in your towns that need people working and people who are trained to work in particular areas.

And I know, Lisa, you all specifically are working with the new blue Oval plant.

Tell us a little bit about that partnership and how students right now are being developed to work there.

>> We have been working for years to develop really strong partnerships with all of our community partners.

We work in depth with the Hardin County Chamber of Commerce and partners all over our area.

But when the Blue Oval SK announcement was made, obviously that was a huge announcement for Hardin County, and it's bringing 5000 jobs to the area.

They have been an amazing partner and reached out to the schools.

And it wasn't just Hardin County Schools.

They have reached out.

We've had meetings with surrounding counties as well, just to have a conversation around, you know, electrical vehicles are are still fairly new to a lot of the population.

And so the conversations included, what kind of of new technology are we utilizing in these plants?

Because that was a big part of their announcement is that these electric batteries that they're creating, they're using this new technology.

And so there was a learning curve on our part of understanding what manufacturing is going to look like in this new facility.

And then how can we make sure that we're giving students the skills to be able to not only go from high school into, you know, a living wage job at Blue Oval or any of our local manufacturers, but also to be able to get in the door at the next step up.

So as opposed to just going in as an entry level worker, when we work with our community partners, from manufacturing to even our health science fields and different areas like that, we can make sure that the skills that we're providing students in the classroom are going to allow them to not just go in at entry level, like any other student who didn't participate in a pathway.

They have an advantage where they're earning industry certifications and specific skills that are going to allow them to go in at the next level up.

So they're earning more money in their pocket if they're utilizing their time in high school.

And I think that's part of why we start having these conversations with parents starting in middle school.

It's definitely not about locking them into anything.

Our students are allowed to change pathways.

They actually have room in high school to do more than one pathway so they don't have to do just one.

So it's not about locking them in, it's just about giving them opportunities that none of us had going to high school that they can take advantage of.

That's really going to set them up for more skills and promotions in their future, as opposed to just going in and working a job.

They feel more of a connection to it and like they they have worked towards this and really grown.

And so I think kids are going into the workforce with a lot more confidence, but also, especially with today's economy, looking at living wage jobs and even higher for high school graduates, as opposed to, you know, what we had available to us with just a high school diploma.

Now they have industry certifications, associate's degrees, or just college credit in general, which allows them to be that much more employable.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

And so those those pathways, how do they transfer to those community members.

And so like if a community group wants to get involved and say, what's the best way for them to get in touch with the the high school or the local community college to try to form that partnership?

Would it be through?

>> I think the majority of our schools I know for Hardin County, we receive federal Perkins funds, and one of the caveats of federal Perkins funding is that you have an advisory committee, and that's one of the best ways for our community partners and parents and students to all be involved in the curriculum, the career pathways, and making sure that we really do have an alignment from that high school curriculum and the industry certifications into the jobs of tomorrow is we actually have people from business and industry, local business and industry serving on those advisory panels, and they meet at least twice a year, usually to really sit with teachers to make sure that they have the latest and greatest information on what our community partners and our future employers need.

>> And from the community and technical college standpoint, each of the 16 schools, we have a Workforce solutions department that are that are geared towards just building those relationships with the business and industry partners.

So if a Blue Oval wants to reach out to Elizabethtown Community and Technical College, they may meet on a regular basis to look at equipment trends, things that we may need to add at the community college level to make sure we're meeting the needs of our industry partners.

>> One of our more fun ways for our industry partners to come in is to come into the classroom.

We started a career exploration class in all of our middle schools, and it's sixth, seventh and eighth grade because we have so many pathways, we cover part of them in six, part of them in seventh, and then they have a hands on, project based learning that they do in eighth grade.

And so our community partners, when we're going over the different pathways, actually come into the classrooms and do hands on activities with the students or they help judge their activities.

I know we were talking about business and marketing earlier.

Our marketing class did a project where students were creating logos for local businesses, and those business partners came in and judged the logos for them, and some of them actually chose them and started using them on their social media platforms and different things like that.

So it gets them into the classroom, which really makes it to where we're not telling our own story.

I've had people at Chamber of Commerce stand up and say for us on our behalf, if you're not hiring co-op students, if you're not having kids, come in and have interns, then you're behind the curve.

We've been in the classrooms.

We know that this is what they're covering.

These students are wonderful.

And we've had employers say, you know, we've hired them, had them do co-op.

They left and went to college and now have come back and are working for us.

So we're really seeing that full circle impact of what career and technical education was designed to do.

>> Yeah.

That's incredible.

We want to show you some of that too.

So you know, high schools across Kentucky, as we mentioned, have these various partnerships that help students connect with local colleges and universities.

Many are focused on specific career readiness programs.

One of them is the Jefferson or the Jessamine Career and Technology Center.

They have three campuses throughout the Jessamine County School District, with about 29 different pathways and 12 different program areas, and some of these students are completing multiple pathways by the time they graduate.

Here's a look at what's happening there.

>> For high school students.

Don't know what they don't know.

They know what their parents do for a living.

They probably know what some aunts and uncles and grandparents do for a living.

But the world is much larger than that, more than likely.

So by offering these opportunities, students can both early in their high school career get some exploration and determine what they think they might want to do.

Then, as they move through high school, they can specialize in that, potentially get some dual credit in that area.

They can earn some industry certifications in that area.

We offer articulated credit if they pass an end of pathway assessment.

Work based learning is also a key component of what we do.

So they can actually go get some job experience in that area that they might be interested in all before they're paying college tuition for it.

We want them to be prepared for whatever is next.

Sometimes, though, the best thing that we can do for a student is help them figure out what they don't want to do, because what we don't want is students to head on to that post-secondary level with a plan in mind, but no experience in that area, only to realize they've paid a lot of tuition for something that isn't actually their passion.

>> When I went through high school, we did not have these types of programs.

So I think for me, teaching these students that career and tech ed is important because it gives them the opportunity to explore different career paths before they have to really settle in on something.

It's also a safe environment for them to learn more about the career, to grow in the career, and to really see themselves after high school, being able to enter the workforce or to go post-secondary and get further education.

>> In college.

It's a lot of money to go through and do all of your different pathways.

It's a lot of money.

If you want to switch it, it's going to be a lot.

So being able to have like a choice in like what we want to do in high school and it's free.

Like you get to dabble in everything.

Like I also took Small animal tech.

I've also taken wildlife.

I'm taking equine science.

Next semester, I get to dabble in all of the other different things that would in college cost money for me to take.

So it's super cool, like getting to like, make sure that I know what I want to do here in high school.

>> Oh, I know, I know, it's okay.

>> In the vet assisting program, it really we try to stair step into what they would be learning next.

So to assist in a surgery they don't need to know every vein or vessel that is in an animal's body, but they do need to know some basic anatomy and physiology.

And so I think that preparing them and giving them a good foundation for those higher level skills that they would receive if they're going into a traditional four year program or they're going to go to graduate school to get their DVM, I think that that's essential.

Building that self-confidence early and giving those fundamental skills to them so that they are confident enough to take on the more difficult tasks.

>> In the classroom.

We're required to complete so many hours of lab or practice time, and then they go through competency on 25 skills.

So before we ever go to clinical, they learn 25 skills and they get checked off in the classroom to make sure they're competent to perform those.

And then when we go to clinical you have the added component of you actually have patient interaction.

So here in the lab, while we do practice with each other the mannequins, it's just a one way they're doing the skill.

We can simulate what would happen if this occurred.

But in the real world you're getting that real time feedback.

So the students get a lot of actual real time interaction.

How do you respond to people?

How are you kind to people?

How do you deal with things that aren't going the way the book says, but keep your composure, you know, keep your professionalism that you've learned here in the classroom?

>> I really like like the more that it's hands on, but also all the opportunities we get.

So like these, like with M&A, I'm going to be able to have my CNA license, and then the classes that we're about to add are going to be really beneficial for college because they're going to count as college classes.

So that means my college won't have to take so long.

>> What the scenes are on the outside.

>> Why that doesn't call.

>> For sure.

Yeah.

Just like we do with our linens.

>> For people who really want to go into healthcare, this is the perfect stepping stone for them, and they'll be able to get their knowledge further because some some people don't have that.

And like, they go to college and they kind of have to learn it all there.

But we already have some knowledge that is set up for us and handed to us, so it's just easier.

>> I've had students be a part of murder cases.

I've had students be a part of high value civil cases in excess of 100,000 towards $1 million, and they're handling the paperwork for it.

I know that students coming out of this pathway are more prepared than any college graduate for law school, because they don't offer something like this in college.

They're going to have already explored, as a high school student, what's, you know, 20 year olds are just starting to explore in law school.

>> I definitely feel like I could walk into any, like, starting position as a veterinary assistant in any of the clinics and just with a little bit of help, understand everything that needs to be done.

Because the basic information that I learned here.

>> It seems like every year we have a group of students that will come in once the first semester of college is over, they'll come back to visit and talk about how maybe they were the only person in their class that knew what some of the terminology meant because of the things they had done here, or they were the only student in their class that had this specific skill set that they learned with us.

And they were that they were prepared because they had been a part of our pathway.

>> Our kids are going to be the ones that are hired.

Our kids are going to be the ones with the higher success rates in school, because we're preparing them for that.

>> When you let go of this dial, you need to do it slower.

You're going really fast.

>> Wow.

It's really cool to see some of those in action there and how they're impacting the kids.

And as we talked about impacting the employers as well.

So what are some of these pathways available that that maybe kind of unexpected.

Some of those we obviously know are engineering agriculture.

But there's a lot of different options out there.

>> Well, I think about health care and how many different pathways are in health care, how many on ramps and off ramps.

We talk about that a lot.

But anything about nursing, there's so many different levels of nursing, starting with a certified nurse aide all the way up to nurse practitioner, and there's so many levels and certifications between those, so you can go on and on.

But the nursing and the medical, I think people overlook that a lot.

>> Yeah, that's a that's a good one.

And I know one of the things that you all do is JROTC is part of that.

>> We have so many career pathways in Hardin County and they are ever changing, but they go into all the fields.

So we have medical, we have automotive, we have engineering, we have our ag family and consumer sciences with our early childhood programs that have been a huge success.

And then JROTC, which we always try to remind parents that this is it's not necessarily a pathway directly into the military.

It's actually a leadership program which is utilized in so many different fields.

But then I do let students know that obviously there are so many careers you could do in the military and then retire out and be able to do them in the private sector as well.

Even we've been talking about AG, we have a lot of students interested in animal, animal tech jobs and different things like that.

And right on Fort Knox.

So I'm in Hardin County and we're close to a military base.

So they actually have MOS there in the military where they are training dogs.

So even across the career pathways, there are so many different jobs that you can do.

But JROTC is one that's been near and dear to my heart because I was a JROTC student when I was in high school, and so I use that student story to tell students like I did not join the military.

I did it because it was it was a fun leadership course and I joined teams.

But we have a strong partnership with Fort Knox, and they do a great job of communicating with students.

Not only how you can use these classes in the military, but also the different career pathways that they allow you to join.

I think we've also added our dental program, which has been really exciting.

That's a brand new one for Hardin County.

This is our first year doing that one, so we've been trying to get the information out there about that one.

But being here on set, I like to remind people we also have television production.

We are in the age of TikTok.

And parents, you know, they feel how they feel about it.

And I've even had elementary kids that are saying, I want to be an influencer or I want to be a YouTuber.

And and honestly, we have to recognize that there are a lot of different career paths that relate into these fields that kids are interested in and not deter them from them, but say, hey, let's start looking at careers that take what you're passionate about and actually allow you to make money doing them.

So we do have our our television production career pathway, and then KDE is continually adding new ones we're waiting to hear right now.

Sports medicine is going to make a comeback.

That one is one that our students were super interested in.

So just there's a little bit of something for everyone.

And if we don't have the exact career path that a student wants, I know for us Realty has.

Being a realtor has been one of the ones that kids are like.

We don't have a pathway for that.

We always tell them like, go into business, we have management, we have entrepreneurship.

You need the marketing skills and then we allow them to co-op.

So we've had students co-op at a realtor's office, they graduate, and then they continue working there and learn how to do their licensing exam and prepare for a career in that.

And that's also the beautiful part of dual credit is if you're not sure what career you want to do, you can take some dual credit classes and get your college degree started.

So a little bit of something for everyone.

>> What about those students who have no clue what they want to do?

There are a lot of those out there who say, I really don't know.

What's the best way for them to approach finding a career pathway.

And and like you mentioned, you can change your mind later.

You're not locked into anything.

Right?

>> You know, I think it's some basic exploration and saying, what are you good at?

What are you interested in, what do you like?

And then you start to say what careers connect to that.

And so if that's I like to play video games.

And when I was teaching we'd say, well, there are no jobs playing video games.

Get over that.

Well, now we have people who are making lots of money flying drones for realtors, for agriculture purposes, for the military, for all these things.

And so actually you can make a good living flying, playing video games.

So but that student starting that conversation and then looking at a lot of things, maybe doing some job shadowing and actually going to a vet clinic or a realtor's office or whatever the case is a TV production set up and see this is what you actually do and then start to rule some things in, but maybe rule some things out as they do that.

But the earlier students can start those conversations with mom and dad, with teachers, with whoever, the better off they're going to be, and the sooner they're going to realize, I do have a passion.

I do have something that I want to pursue.

>> And which makes them a better student.

>> Absolutely.

>> And that's good for the schools as well?

>> Absolutely.

Yes.

Student who knows what they want to do when they grow up.

And they have a clear path whether they can work based learning or not, but they are going to show up.

They're going to be there.

Their attendance is going to be better.

Their engagement is going to be better.

Work based learning students have great attendance because they're getting, you know, those classes out of the way at school in the morning.

They're going to work in the afternoon.

They're passionate about it.

They're excited.

Our commissioner talks about vibrant learning opportunities.

There's nothing more vibrant learning than work based learning and actually getting to do what you're wanting to do.

>> So and we talked a lot about dual credit.

But how does that work with CTE and work together?

You can get dual credit with CTE.

>> So I was going to kind of piggyback on the previous conversation with the Gen Ed certification pathway.

So a lot of our students are on an associate's degree track.

But some of them are like, I don't know what I want to do.

And what's the point of earning an associate's degree if you're just going to rush yourself to get to college and then not know what you want to study?

So we use the Gen Ed certification checklist from Kctcs to kind of advise those students that are not quite sure, but they know or they think that they want to go either to a two year or four year college.

And it generally consists of 33 hours of just some college basics.

And that's really good for students and for parents, I think, to kind of see if they're going to be successful and just go ahead and get that English 101 out of the way and kind of do it at a slower pace.

Maybe they're doing half half time college, half time high school.

So that's a really good opportunity for students to explore.

>> And some of the work based learning opportunities to you can do internships to get credit.

Right.

So how does that work?

>> So either way so co-op is.

>> A course that it's done in combination with your career and technical your CTE teacher.

And they do continue to learn skills.

And the teachers or we even have co-op coordinators within our schools go out and double check that the students are making progress towards the standards that they were supposed to be learning.

We collaborate with the employer to see, like, is there any skills that they were they were missing that we need to incorporate into our program, or if there's any skills that the student needs to be working on, we make sure that that gets incorporated into their work based learning experience.

So it is a course, they receive a grade for it, and it's based on how well are you doing the work, how well are you meeting your employer standards, as well as the academic standards that go along with that course?

And then they get a grade so it counts towards one of the classes they need for graduation.

>> And we also have unpaid internships, particularly in the medical field, healthcare where it's unpaid.

But it is an internship and you're required to have so many hours of practice experience.

And then we also have work based learning that happens.

That's maybe not for credit, but in agriculture particularly, we all of our students have a supervised agricultural experience program.

And so they're doing something, whether they're working in a vet's office part time after school or they're have their own business, or maybe they're volunteering with an organization to get some kind of experience and work based to see what they like and what they're good at.

So all those pieces can, can flow together.

Typically younger students, we want to see them doing some kind of exploration.

And then as they get older, maybe we go to an internship or a job shadowing, and then that leads to co-op.

Or even if it's just a summer job that relates to their pathway.

So all those pieces can work together to help that student get that real world experience.

And not only that, they get to make money, but also have something to put on resume.

And so we think down the road, the student who has a two students have the same GPA, but one student has four years work experience.

We know who goes to the top of that stack.

So I think that's an important thing to mention as well.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

And you also mentioned industry certification.

What.

Explain what that is.

And how does how does that work.

>> So KDE.

>> Has compiled a list and it's in combination with our.

>> Workforce investment.

>> And employers will dictate that and tell them, hey, this is an actual certification that translates into the workforce.

And then there's a process to get those approved.

So there's a list of approved industry certs that go along with almost all career pathways.

There may be a few at this point, but I think the majority of them have added some sort of industry certification, and it makes the student that much more employable.

So for example, our early childhood pathway, they can earn their Commonwealth child care credential, which is something that's going to get any child care center a higher rating.

The more staff that you have that have that credential and the state comes in and do their accreditation rating, they're going to get a higher rating because the majority of their staff is certified.

So like we were saying, if you've got somebody coming in off the street that doesn't have any experience, and then you've got a student who's got that industry cert, they're going to be more employable over the one who doesn't have the education or the certifications.

>> And if you think about in welding is one that's easy to get your hands around.

But the American Welding Society, AWS, they have levels of certifications.

But if a student leaves, they graduate from Bracken County and they have an AWS level one, they can go literally anywhere in the United States of America to an employer and say, I'm an AWS one, and they are that much higher if they're at different levels of that.

There's a forklift driver certification, there's OSHA ten that a lot of employers want.

And the student that comes in with OSHA ten, the employer says they have OSHA ten.

That's this many hours.

I don't have to spend training them.

I can put them directly on the production floor.

So there's some great opportunities with industry certifications for students.

>> It's a license to do the job for for a lot of different ones.

And so if they have that that license and that credential, they're going to be able to go straight into employment.

And that's been one of our biggest fans of CTE, is seeing students be able to leave from the graduation stage and roll right into a job, because they use their time in high school to not only take classes and learn how to do something, they actually are earning real certifications like we talked about with nursing and phlebotomy and welding.

Even our engineering students and different pathways are taking credentials that allow them to clep out of college classes to Servsafe has been one of them for us.

So our culinary students earn their Serve Safe certification and then their classes that they don't have to take with Kctcs because the class is teaching them what they need to earn that and they already have it.

So again, it's saving them time and money when they go to college or getting them straight into jobs.

>> And how do they know what credits or pathways will transfer to what colleges do?

Do they do all of those credits always transfer to colleges?

I'm assuming you have to go to the specific college to see which credits are going to work.

>> Probably varies just a little bit on the certificate, certification or the credential.

They may need to go to their four year or two year partner just to to match it up.

But I'm going to say in most cases, the high school partners are working with the community colleges in their areas and the employers to know that whatever they're offering is going to be the industry standard.

>> And most.

>> Of your schools have either your counselors or college and career coaches or post-secondary readiness coaches.

They've all got different titles, but KDE has resources on their website where they break down not only by industry certification, but also by career pathway and articulated credit that you can earn.

And so there are staff at your schools that know that those resources exist and can help parents navigate the web page and find those and look at, hey, I'm doing this pathway, I've got this certification.

These are all the colleges that it's accepted at.

So those documents are available online.

>> And how does that work with dual credit as well.

>> So with dual credit, since our main provider is through Kctcs, all the public schools here in the state of Kentucky would accept those credits as they are.

So English 101 would come in as first year English at a school and so forth, and then we just advise students who might be looking out of state or even some private schools in the state of Kentucky that we need to check those receiving institutions websites.

And so all schools have kind of a transfer guide on their site.

And so you can just navigate that by the college that you're sending credit from.

So in our case, Owensboro Community and Technical College.

And so you know it's a lot of going back and forth maybe in those circumstances.

But if a student is staying in the state of Kentucky and staying with the public school, then the transferability is great.

>> Yeah.

>> I know for our students receiving their associate's degrees, Kctcs has been an amazing partner with the public school system.

We actually have somebody from Ectc that comes over and sits with our students and helps them pick their classes, and they look at how those are going to transfer either to Ectc or to a four year university, which Ectc has become a university hub recently.

And we are continually adding more universities that you can actually get all four years of your degree right there on the Elizabethtown campus, or remotely doing classes online.

So their staff has come over and worked with our staff and students to make sure that everything is aligning and transferring as smooth as as possible.

>> And just to piggyback on that, we also have an early college coordinator in Owensboro, and she serves about 300 students.

About 210 of those are ours in Daviess County.

And she really works thoroughly with them to make sure that what they're taking is going to transfer to UK for nursing, let's say, or whatever the case may be.

So she's excellent.

Then we also have a kind of a dual credit, not necessarily coordinator, but she is the one that oversees all of the dual credit from the college.

And she will come into our college and career centers at our high schools and sit with the students, as well as myself and our CCR coaches.

We do a lot of individual advising, and I really, for our purposes, with 160 students, that's where it is.

Is it a lot?

Yes it is.

It's exciting though I would say I love dual credit, and I think that you can see that on my face when I talk about it, because I'm truly passionate about helping these students find what's next for them.

So it is a team effort, though, in Daviess County Public Schools, I will say that, and I'm fortunate to have that team that I work with.

>> Yeah, well, we can tell you're passionate about it and all of you all as well.

And it is so individualized for, for different students.

And so that would be my main takeaway is, is to talk to those people in your high school that are no where to direct you to the right resources.

>> Definitely talk to your your high school, your counselor, whoever it is, but also whatever that next level is going to be.

And so whether you're going to a private college, whether you're going to kctcs for a two year program or even a certificate program, whoever's at that next level, finding somebody there and asking them whether maybe you just do web research but find out what is needed, what's going to transfer, what's going to help me with this, to make that transition and to be as efficient as you can and make sure you're taking the right classes.

And again, not taking classes you don't need unless you just just want to and have the freedom.

That's also an option.

But if you're trying to be efficient, make sure you're getting exactly what you need when you need it.

>> Yeah.

Well, there are those new career pathways that are being introduced, as we mentioned, so many that we haven't even talked about, and they arise in different communities depending on what's needed there.

So for instance, in eastern Kentucky, there's a new pilot program for high schoolers that are interested in mental and behavioral health.

This is something this area identified as a need, and they are training the next generation to take on these high demand careers.

So Renee Shaw sat down with Dr.

Leslie Sizemore with the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education to find out more about that.

>> Doctor Sizemore, thank you so much for a little bit of your time.

>> Absolutely.

It's so good to be here with you.

>> Yes.

Let's talk about this new pathway, particularly that focuses on the behavioral health sciences.

>> We know that across Kentucky we need more avenues for people to enter behavioral health and mental health workforce, especially in our rural areas.

People aren't going into those into those fields, and it's really causing an access, a health care access issue for people in the mountains and in far western Kentucky.

So we wanted to develop an an avenue for people to break down barriers, really fuel up rural health, health care in Kentucky and climb to was how we reach that climb actually stands for career ladders.

And mental and Behavioral health.

>> Are perfect acronym.

>> It's a great acronym.

And we're really excited to kick this off.

>> Right.

Was this really spurred by what you're noticing from a community perspective in need, or is it driven by the fact that in the professional space there's just not enough of these experts?

Or maybe it's a combination of both?

>> I think it's it's all that one of the issues that we're really trying to encourage is people to fill those top five sectors for workforce in Kentucky, and health care is number one.

Health care is a great economic engine for Kentucky.

And unfortunately, it really only spurs the economy in the triangle areas in the central part of the state.

So the rural areas are kind of left behind on that.

And so we wanted to help the rural areas to be able to bump up some opportunities.

And then also, you know, in our rural areas, our high schoolers often think that they have to choose between going to work or going to school.

And this opportunity allows them to do both.

So it's kind of a a novel way to approach that.

>> So talk to us about how this works operationally.

>> Absolutely.

So this allows our high school students in rural areas of the state to capitalize on opportunities to learn more about behavioral health and mental health careers.

So with climb 2.0, a high schooler in several of our county schools, I'm going to try to rattle these off.

Hopefully I won't miss any any of them.

But Betsy Lane, Perry County, hazard, Harlan County.

Harlan I know Floyd, Floyd.

Yes, but all of those high schools to allow them to explore some short term certificates.

So the short term certificates are in two areas the Community health Worker certificate and the registered behavioral Technician certificate.

And so while they are in high school, the UK center for Rural Health Excellence will be doing the curriculum going into those high schools, teaching the students what they need to be able to sit for those certification exams, and then they'll be credentialed by the time they graduate so they can go right to work for mental health providers in their areas, in their hometowns, and they can be duly enrolled at the community and technical colleges.

We have three community and technical college partners southeast, hazard and Sandy.

>> Big Sandy.

>> So down in the mountains, those three community and technical colleges are partnering with us.

They'll offer the dual credit, so the students will be acquiring some college credit while they're there.

And then they will also be the end of the pathway so that they can enroll right into human services degree pathways, get a two year degree, and then on to like other mental health opportunities like social work.

>> Wow.

What really sparked the idea for this?

How did this really come to mind?

>> I think it's twofold.

One is that we are focusing a lot at the Council on Workforce Talent Opportunities.

We call it pilot to policy.

And so we're doing some pilot projects like this one that will hopefully influence policy in the future and will give our colleges a little bit of extra funding, some ideas, some innovation strategies to be able to change with the times.

You know, higher education is definitely going to have to modify the way that we're doing things in order to stay relevant in the economy today.

So it's just an opportunity to really support our higher education institutions, at the same time supporting our rural students so that they see that there is a real return on investment for higher education.

>> This pilot project is starting in eastern Kentucky.

Are there plans to expand that beyond that region?

>> Possibly.

We'll see how it goes and we'll see if we're able to really capitalize on all that we want it to be.

And then hopefully we can influence what people are doing in other parts of the state.

We never want to hoard any good ideas at CPE.

We want to share them out and make sure that all of our students in Kentucky have the opportunities that they're intended to have.

>> And so when they finish high school, they'll have how many credit hours under their belt before they if they decide to matriculate to the college level.

>> Six areas of credit for prior learning as they go toward their other degree pathways.

So that's quite a bit.

And as they can combine that with other dual credit courses, a lot of our students get out and they're about halfway toward a two year degree when they get out of high school.

So it's a great option for families.

It's very affordable.

And that's one of the things that we're really working on at the council is to make higher ed more affordable and to accelerate those pathways that we can to get people into the workforce as soon as we can.

>> How much of an investment from the state coffers is the dual credit program?

>> So our partner in this, our funding partner is the cabinet for Health and Family Services.

They're having their own staffing shortages for mental and behavioral health.

So they have invested a little over $906,000 to be able to fuel fuel this program.

And they're hoping that they can be one of the employers.

They will be one of the employers in our employer network that will give the work based learning opportunities to the students, so these students can come right out and go to work for our community mental health centers across the state.

They can go to work for places like Pikeville Medical Center, Mountain Comp Health Corporation.

Those are some of our employer partners that are offering students employment opportunities.

>> Yeah.

Well, Dr.

Leslie Sizemore, thank you so much for a few minutes of your time.

>> Thank you.

>> Very interesting to see the ones that are popping up all all over in the different areas, but I do we do have to wrap things up, but I want to ask you all each your best piece of advice for people who are watching out there.

>> I would say for students, and I work primarily with high school students, is to advocate for yourself.

You have to speak up.

You can't sweep your problems under the rug.

We say to our dual credit population.

So make sure that you advocate for yourself.

>> Yeah, future is coming.

>> I would say start exploring early and explore as much and as many different options as you can, and then make an informed decision once you've done that.

>> Yeah, that's great.

>> And I'm going to say take advantage of your dual credit scholarships.

You can start as a freshman and knock out a handful of classes before you graduate.

>> Yeah.

That's incredible for students and parents to.

>> Get to know, your counselors come to parent nights whenever they have them and get involved.

The more that parents know, the more that they're able to have additional conversations with their their children and help them make those decisions.

So come to your school, talk to your staff, and use their wealth of knowledge.

>> Yeah, that's what you all are there for.

And we thank you all so much for sharing your expertise with us today.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of Education Matters focused on paths for success.

I hope you've learned something new this evening to help you navigate some of those topics we talked about.

We have linked to this program, as well as all of those resources that we mentioned at Ket.org, Capitol Reins PR, Education Matters.

You can also view and share this program from there.

I'm your host, Kelsey Starks from myself and all of us here at KET.

Have a great night.