Creating a culture of Career and College Readiness (CCR) for your students begins with leadership. Before you can guide your students toward success, you need to support and empower your staff first. If staff members don’t have the tools, training, or support they need, they can’t effectively teach and guide students in reaching their post-graduation goals. It’s simple: to help your students build a path to success, you must first build a plan to ensure your staff feels supported and prepared..
Regular training is key—whether that’s through workshops, faculty meetings, or professional development sessions. Help your staff understand how they can integrate CCR into their daily work, from lesson planning to advising students on career and college options.
1. Articulate Your Goals and Provide Regular Training
Clear communication is essential. Define your school’s vision for Career and College Readiness and make sure it aligns with your broader educational goals. If your staff doesn’t understand the vision or see how it connects to their work, it won’t become a priority.
Make CCR a part of every conversation. Tie it to your school’s academic and behavioral improvement efforts. If you don’t train your staff regularly on the ways your school is preparing students for graduation and beyond, they won’t know how to help students meet those goals.
Regular training is key—whether that’s through workshops, faculty meetings, or professional development sessions. Help your staff understand how they can integrate CCR into their daily work, from lesson planning to advising students on career and college options.
It is important that staff know that great instruction is not for its own sake, our students and parents are our customers and they are coming to us for a service. A service that not only ensures that their students can read and compute math but they are coming for their students ability to be ready for career opportunities for life.
2. Embed Career and College Readiness into Your MTSS and Continuous Improvement Plans
Career and College Readiness shouldn’t exist in isolation. It’s essential to integrate CCR into your existing frameworks for support, such as your Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and Continuous Improvement processes. Start by weaving CCR into your leadership team meetings, alongside other priorities like Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), behavior, and academics.
By incorporating CCR data into your MTSS and Continuous Improvement you and your staff will also be able to address any inequities in access and outcomes for students. You will be able to identify any issues for students receiving services, students receiving Free and Reduced Lunch, and as well as student demographics including ethnicity.
Here’s are examples of data staff can review and include in their continuous improvement processes at each school level:
- Elementary School: Track data on how many students are engaging with CCR lessons or participation in career fairs. Look at exit ticket data to measure understanding and interest.
- Middle School: Monitor student access and participation in internships, CTE courses or Career and College Field trips. Track individual and academic planning processes, ensuring students understand middle school and high school graduation requirements.
- High School: Focus on student progress toward graduation, and use data from exit tickets to assess how well students understand post-graduation pathways, including college and career admissions requirements.
By integrating CCR into your ongoing efforts for academic and behavioral improvement, you make it a natural part of your school’s culture and priorities.
3. Use Positive Reinforcement for Staff
The same positive reinforcement strategies you use with students should also apply to your staff. Recognizing and celebrating the efforts of teachers and staff who support CCR can help build momentum and excitement across the building.
Consider simple but meaningful ways to show appreciation, like:
- Hosting pizza or dessert parties for staff members who go above and beyond
- Creating a space for staff to share shoutouts and thank-yous. This could be a physical “shoutout” box or an online form.
- Reading shoutouts aloud during staff meetings, including them in newsletters, on your school website or even recognizing staff at senior awards or district events.
- Recognizing high yearly academic outcomes for outstanding instruction
Celebrating staff achievements can motivate the entire team to embrace and engage with the CCR goals you’ve set.
By focusing on these three strategies—clear communication and training, integrating CCR into your systems, and using positive reinforcement for staff—you’ll lay the foundation for a school-wide culture of Career and College Readiness. When staff are supported, motivated, and aligned, they’ll be better equipped to guide your students toward successful futures.