CHOOSING A CAREER PATHWAY: A PERSONALIZED EDUCATIONAL PLAN
Jobs in the twenty-first century will require both high academic and technical skills.  Primarily because of ever changing technology, our society will see many new job titles and work areas added each year.  That makes it especially important for students to begin thinking early about what types of occupations they might want to pursue and then to plan a rigorous high school program that will give them more opportunities for success.

A joint project conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Education has produced several reports intended to identify the skills that workers in the future need to bring to the workplace.  The first report produced by this joint project in 1991, "What Work Requires of Schools," identified what students and workers need to know and be able to do in order to succeed in the workplace.  Below are the foundation skills and the workplace competencies identified by the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) that competent workers will need as they cope with numerous changes during their adult work lives.

Foundation Skills

Competent workers in the high performance workplace need:
 
  • Basic Skills

    •     Reading, writing, arithmetic, speaking, and listening
     
  • Thinking Skills

    •     The ability to learn, to reason, to think creatively, to make decisions, and to solve problems
     
  • Personal Qualities

    •     Individual responsibility, self esteem and self management, sociability, and integrity

    Workplace Competencies

    Effective workers can productively use:

    · Resources
        They know how to allocate time, money, materials, space, and staff.

    · Interpersonal Skills
        They can work on teams, teach others, serve customers, lead, and work well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds.

    · Information
        They can acquire and evaluate data, interpret and communicate, and use computers to process information.

    · Systems
        They understand social, organizational, and technological systems; they can monitor and correct performance; and they can design or improve systems.

    · Technology
        They can select equipment and tools, apply technology to specific tasks, and maintain and troubleshoot equipment.

    The skills and competencies described above clearly show that students should plan a rigorous high school program that will provide the foundation for continued learning beyond high school.

    In order to help students, with the assistance of their families and school personnel, build an educational plan that will provide them more opportunities for success, the district has expanded the catalog of courses. "Choose Your Career Pathway" is intended to help students develop their plans for life and then implement those plans. "Career" implies more than just a job; it includes education, work, and lifestyle. Achieving a successful career requires years of planning, studying, training, and hard work. If used correctly, this section should help students select the right path to follow in high school, one of the most important decisions students will make in their lives.

    To assist students in planning wisely, the district has developed a set of career pathways.  These career pathways are broad areas of study that are flexible enough to allow students to change as they acquire new knowledge and experience.

    The district has identified five career clusters, which are organized around broad career fields. Within all except one of the clusters, more focused, specific pathways have been developed. The clusters are

          · Arts and Communication
          · Business and Marketing
          · Health, Fitness, and Medicine
          · Science, Engineering, and Technology
          · Social, Personal, and Public Services

    With careful consideration and discussion, each student can identify a specific and individualized "path."  Students are urged to consider carefully the questions at the beginning of each pathway. When one or more pathways appear interesting, students should look carefully at the possible degrees and the jobs or careers associated with the area(s). Then they need to note the related high school elective courses that would help them prepare for each pathway. The final section of each pathway presents related community and school activities in which it would be especially beneficial to participate.  Campus to campus differences may exist.

    All of the identified pathways include challenging, relevant courses that provide road maps to future career goals. Additionally, because all students take a "core foundation" of academic courses, career paths overlap enough to allow the flexibility to change "paths" if interests change or new knowledge and skills are acquired. In every pathway, students will continue to take the core curriculum courses that provide all students with the courses necessary to enter most Texas post secondary institutions.