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WINDSOR
JACKET PACKETS
Windsor School District
Upper Valley School-to-Work
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
OF PRACTICE
The Windsor School District has designed and implemented a career development
portfolio for all students in grades 9-12 at the Windsor High School. The portfolio
is named Jacket Packets to reflect the school mascot, the yellow jacket.
For students in grades nine through eleven, the actual "packets" are manila
folders stored in the advisor's office. Students use this packet to maintain records
of their career exploration and academic activities. During senior year, students
start to use a three-ring binder as the Jacket Packet; at this point the packet becomes
a display of the student’s best work, career exploration, evaluations, awards, and
work experience. This more formal portfolio format provides a helpful tool when students
apply for post-secondary education or work.
While there are common elements required for each grade level (See Timetable), the student decides
which examples go into the portfolio. Students are encouraged to continually update
their portfolios by adding new items and weeding out items that no longer reflect
their desires and interests. This makes the practice student driven, providing the
opportunity for personal reflection, and allowing for differing styles and tastes.
The project is implemented using the guidance/advisory system already in place at
Windsor High. Advisors at the school include educators as well as the principal,
school nurse, guidance counselors, and other school staff. Students meet with their
advisors once a day for five minutes; two to three times a month the meeting is increased
to 20 minutes, which provides time to work on the portfolio.
Annually, a teacher of the student’s choosing will complete a Teacher’s Report
(See Teacher's Report) for inclusion in the
packet. To complete the report, the teacher uses a rubric to evaluate the student
in seven areas: intellectual curiosity, creativity and originality, achievement,
self-discipline, perseverance, initiative, and relationship with others. The evaluation
is based on a comparison to his/her peers in the class.
The school already had a graduation requirement of thirty hours of community service,
and the Jacket Packets became the logical place to record the students’ Community
Service Record (See Community Service Record) and evaluation, along
with the Activities and Honors Sheet (See Activities and Honors
Sheet)
and other required materials.
PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION
The school district formed a School-To-Career committee, consisting of educators
and administrators in the Windsor School District, to encourage and implement School-To-Work
activities. The committee quickly determined it was necessary to hire a full time
coordinator, and the Windsor District partnered with the Upper Valley School-To-Work
Collaborative to share a coordinator’s salary.
Once hired, the coordinator worked with the committee to design the Jacket Packet.
A timetable was developed that identifies what should go into a student’s packet
during each year of high school. A Teacher’s Report form and Activity and
Honors Sheet were developed, to be completed annually for each student and
included in the Packet. The committee also sought input from students about what
they thought should go into the packets.
The coordinator developed a mock portfolio to demonstrate a "best practice"
model of the Jacket Packet for staff and students. This model packet was used as
a marketing and publicity tool for students. All members of the school staff were
introduced to the project prior to the 98/99 school year, and received professional
development training on career development portfolios and the Jacket Packet project
during staff meetings and staff development days throughout the school year.
Contests, complete with prizes, were developed as part of an awareness campaign for
students. For example, the mock portfolio was available for review in the school
library, and students would have to flip through the packet to count the number of
times a certain word (e.g. "student") was written in the portfolio. Competing
in the contest required that the students take time to view the portfolio and read
some of the contents.
Publicity about the practice was provided to parents through regular articles in
the School-To-Career monthly newsletter and articles in the local newspaper.
In its first year, the project was initiated with the freshman and sophomore classes.
Now all incoming freshman are introduced to the Jacket Packet. The 00/01 school year
is the first in which all students in the high school are participating, and in which
the senior class has a four-year career portfolio.
The practice is fully implemented, and training and awareness campaigns are ongoing.
Educators still receive training during staff meetings and staff development days.
To help keep the practice alive and exciting, speakers from outside the district
are asked to speak with staff about why a portfolio project is important and the
benefits it offers for students.
By making the project user friendly, ready to roll-out, and imbedded into the existing
advisory system, and keeping the cost of the packets at a minimum, the program was
designed for feasibility and sustainability.
CONNECTIONS TO VITAL RESULTS AND VERMONT FRAMEWORK OF STANDARDS
Personal and Career Preparation
- Develop an
understanding of the career planning process.
- Develop the
ability to communicate effectively through listening, speaking, writing, and non-verbal
communication.
- Understanding
the concept of expectations and standards for work and demonstrate such life skills
as:
- Responsibility
- Organization
- Decision-making
- Taking initiative
- Taking pride
in work
- Producing
quality work
- Completing
tasks
- Understanding
that all work is valuable.
- Identify and
use career resources available through the community, the Department of Employment
and Training, business and personal connections.
- Demonstrate
knowledge of academic, vocational, technical and post-secondary programs available
and develop a personalized plan for career and continuing education.
- Connect personal
interests and skills with career interest and skills.
- Engage in
the career decision-making process.
- Maintain an
ongoing record of personal and career development.
Self-knowledge
- Acquire a
positive sense of self that allows them to value their individuality, and to react
with others successfully.
- Begin to understand
their learning styles and themselves as learners and workers.
- Begin to understand
their abilities to be flexible.
- Demonstrate
a sense of individual self worth and competence together with skills to interact
with others successfully
- Identify their
abilities, interests, strengths and weaknesses.
- Understand
that changes will be a norm in their lives and in the workplace.
- Refine and
use skills to communicate and interact with others successfully.
- Identify personal
abilities, interests, values, and traits using self-assessment strategies.
Knowledge
of work
- Be aware of
work’s relationship to the needs and function of society.
- Understanding
the connection between learning and the world of work.
- Understanding
the probability of change and one’s capability for changing.
- Increase knowledge
of the broad range of careers available without gender/disability barriers.
- Understand
that learning and work are ongoing, and that all work, paid or unpaid has value.
- Understand
secondary and post-secondary options.
- Know and use
the academic skills needed in specific and generic occupations and realize the transferability
of those skills.
Vermont
Standards/ Personal Development Standards
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Worth and Competence |
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3.1
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Goal-Setting |
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Students assess
their own learning by developing rigorous criteria for themselves, and use these
to set goals and produce consistently high-quality work. |
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3.2
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Learning Strategies |
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Students assess
how they learn best, and use additional learning strategies to supplement those already
used. |
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3.3
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Respect |
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Students demonstrate
respect for themselves and others. |
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Workplace |
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3.14
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Dependability |
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Students demonstrate
dependability, productivity, and initiative. |
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3.15
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Career Choices |
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Students know
about various careers. |
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3.16
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Transition Planning |
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Students develop
a plan for current and continued education and training to meet personal and career
goals. |
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EVALUATION/MEASUREMENT
Learning objectives were not formally established in advance, but were discussed
during committee meetings when the format and contents of the packets were determined.
The most meaningful student-centered indicator of success so far has been mostly
anecdotal. This senior class of 2001 is the first to use the packet for an extended
amount of time. They are finding it helpful for locating information about what activities
they participated in during their high school years. Students are saying the packets
are useful for college applications.
SUSTAINABILITY PLAN
The School-To-Career Coordinator position is full-time and funded through the
school’s budget. The portfolio project is no longer dependent on the coordinator
position and is now fully integrated into the school system.
LESSONS LEARNED
- To maximize
the success of a project such as this support from the administrators and staff is
essential.
- Marketing
is an on-going process. The students and faculty need periodic "pumping up"
about why they are doing this.
- Have the project
mapped out, flexible, and user-friendly.
- Input from
students and staff is valuable to tailor the project to the needs of the school.
CONTACT
Koko H. Feeney
School-To-Career Coordinator
Windsor School District
127 State Street
Windsor, VT 05089
Phone: (802) 674-6344 ext. 341
E-mail: koko_feeney@windsor.k12.vt.us
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RESOURCES
NOTE:
The following items can be downloaded as part of the complete packet (see "Other
Related Links" below).
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