At the March 10 Catasauqua Area School District Board of Education meeting, board members heard a presentation from Ashley Schmidt, career facilitator, titled Connecting Classrooms to Careers.

Schmidt outlined the ways the district is making those connections for students, starting as early as elementary school.

According to Schmidt, students at Sheckler Elementary School are introduced to talks about different careers and start dreaming about their futures. There are mini career days, and students are taught career standards. There are also career-focused clubs, such as a Media Club and STEAM Club.

When students reach Catasauqua Middle School, they are introduced to the Botvin LifeSkills program and the PATHS program. PATHS stands for promoting alternative thinking strategies. These programs allow students the opportunity to learn more about themselves and to think about who they are as a person.

Schmidt noted the fifth- and eighth-grade students take tours of Lehigh Career & Technical Institute. Students at Catasauqua High School have the option of taking classes at LCTI, and this allows students the opportunity to consider these options.

CMS students also take part in the What’s So Cool About Manufacturing? contest, which partners a school with a manufacturing company. The students create a video presentation sharing what they’ve learned.

Most of the future readiness programs are at the high school level, according to Schmidt. It is here students really explore if their future involves trade school, college, the military or joining the work force right out of high school.

There are many colleges, technical schools and military branches that visit the school and give presentations to the students. Students also participate in a career fair and mock interviews to prepare for the future.

Schmidt reported there are college and career readiness programs built into the curriculum to help students identify what they are looking for and how best to achieve their goals. Students go on field trips to businesses in different industries and hear from an array of guest speakers.

There are also work-based learning opportunities for students, such as job shadowing, working as a teacher’s assistant and pre-apprentice programs. There are also new electives being offered every year at CHS and the opportunity for dual enrollment at Lehigh Carbon Community College.

Schmidt reported the district is working with B. Braun to pioneer a German exchange program for the future between CHS and a school in Germany.

To assist with the students’ explorations, the high school has implemented a teacher advisory program. Each student is assigned a teacher to act as an adviser. While the school counselors still work with the students, they are greatly outnumbered by the students. The school is using teachers to help connect personally with the students.

New this year is the Student of the Semester program, according to Schmidt. Through this program, students are recognized for positive employability skills, such as problem solving, communication, collaboration, leadership, work ethic, global awareness, career management and information technology. Schmidt reported the district noticed it was mostly high academic achievers and athletes being recognized and sought to shift the focus to other students as well.

All students are required to complete a senior project detailing their personal journey through high school. They look introspectively at where they were when they started high school - emotionally, academically, socially, etc. They then discuss the events and processes they went through to get to where they are at the end of their high school careers.

This inward study allows students to explore their own strengths and weaknesses and prepares them to head out into “the real world” with a better understanding of themselves and what they have to offer the world.