Franklin Regional looks at shift to improve students' career readiness

Apr. 13—Jeff Stanczak, the internship coordinator for the Franklin Regional School District, said he understands it may seem strange to ask a 14-year-old to make decisions about their career and future.

"But if we hold off on those decisions until a student's junior or senior year — as so often happens — you can really get behind the eight ball," he said.

Stanczak and others in the district are making a push to expose students to a wide variety of possible career paths at an earlier age, bringing in career speakers for elementary students and taking field trips to trade schools a few years earlier than before.

Stanczak, high school Assistant Principal Ted Benning and several other district staff are proposing the replacement of a student's "culminating project" — a state requirement for graduation — with a system of badges and credentials built into the district's Schoology education software, that will allow students to collect a "portfolio" of achievements throughout their high school years that would satisfy those same state requirements.

The shift would be paired with teaching what Benning referred to as "FRever Skills."

"The gist of this initiative was to create a holistic, skills-based approach where, regardless of their career paths after high school, students have an equitable opportunity to personalize their education, particularly at a middle- and high-school level," he said.

Students in all districts already are required to collect what state education officials call "artifacts," benchmark achievements aimed at ensuring students are college- or career-ready.

"We want to take the initiatives offered by the state and our curriculum and build on them, make them more relevant," Benning said.

If approved by the school board, students, starting with next year's sixth graders, the Class of 2029, and next year's freshmen and sophomores, would earn digital " badges" by working on five key component areas: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity and citizenship — what middle-school counselor Brian Coiner called "the five Cs."

"The kids will start a portfolio in Schoology beginning in sixth grade, to build up badges for successfully demonstrating 'FRever Skills,'" Coiner said.

High school science teacher Monica Bruno said another component will ask students to choose their high school courses more purposefully, looking at potential career pathways and taking advantage of classes tailored to those pathways.

"Is this something I'm interested in? Is this something I'm good at, or that I might want to pursue?" Bruno said. "Narrowing down those choices when it's 'free' for them at the high school, rather than doing it at college to find out what you're interested in, is the goal."

Stanczak said the pathways also include an exploratory option, and the idea is to have students actively engaged in exploring careers and learning more about themselves.

"The goal is to prepare themselves for the future," he said.

Typically, the district's counselors handle the lion's share of career guidance. If approved by the school board, the proposal would, "expand that horizon," Benning said.

"Our counselors will still play a large role in students' educational, social and emotional lives," he said. "But they will have some additional support."

Students graduating in 2022 and 2023 will have some flexibility in what form their "culminating project" takes, if the district has begun implementing the badge and credential proposal.

Board member Mark Kozlosky said he likes that the proposal exceeds what the state requires in terms of education.

"If we build on this foundation and do it right, we'll be a district that's really setting kids up to know why they're taking classes, parents will know what's available and everything will be bridged together," he said.

The board will consider the proposal at its voting meeting, set for 7:30 p.m. April 19. Meetings are livestreamed at YouTube.com/user/FranklinRegionalSD.

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick at 724-850-2862, pvarine@triblive.com or via Twitter .