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In 1993, the state Department of Education ruled that each Alabama community college could be a member of only one Tech-Prep consortium. The college's two partnerships were then merged to form a new Tech-Prep consortium that includes Dothan and two neighboring county districts, which together add eight high schools to the consortium. The college is the fiscal agent and distributes funds to all three districts. Yet, wide differences in the stage and direction of Tech-Prep development between Dothan and the other districts have effectively created two mini-consortia. This initial profile focuses only on Career Quest--the collaboration between Dothan City Schools and Wallace Community College.
The southeastern Alabama area around Dothan--the sixth largest city in the state--has both expanding and contracting economic sectors. In recent years, retirement communities have been established in Dothan and the surrounding areas, which are served by two large hospitals and many nursing homes. The influx of a large elderly population has increased demand for health services and improved opportunities for employment in health occupations. On the other hand, the manufacturing sector has been declining somewhat. Local plants operated by Sony, General Electric, TRW, and Michelin reduced their payrolls in the early 1990s. Still, there remains a substantial demand for qualified industrial services workers--mechanics, electrical technicians, and others--to service and repair equipment and machinery.
Career Quest was preceded by only limited, informal relationships among the key partners. Instructors from the Dothan Vocational Center (DVC) and the technical programs at Wallace Community College had long been members of each other's advisory councils, along with business representatives. Some corporations in the area had been donating materials to DVC, fixing its equipment, giving plant tours, and employing cooperative education students in their machine shops. Sony had "adopted" one of the high schools and provided some special events for its students.
Beginning in 1989, more focused collaboration among the schools, the college, and business partners led to the formulation of the Career Quest plan. A common interest in improving vocational education brought the partners together and broadened into an initiative to provide enhanced career guidance to all students. Representatives from corporations on the Dothan-Houston County Chamber of Commerce Education Committee first provided the impetus for improvements, approaching district supervisors about the importance of upgrading the quality of vocational instruction. A group of teachers and counselors, staff from the community college, and business representatives investigated past research and strategies and in 1990 proposed that reform efforts be based on the Tech-Prep model being developed by the Center for Occupational Research and Development (CORD). The district, however, concluded that features of Tech-Prep--applied academics, use of career clusters to structure course work around occupational goals, and career exposure to help students make choices--would benefit all students. District staff favored including all students in career exploration and cluster choices for a second reason: to ensure that these activities would not be narrowly identified with vocational education and thus stigmatized in parents' and students' eyes. The district and its partners adopted a plan to encourage every student to explore a career and to begin planning for it in high school. This broader goal led the district to change the name of the initiative from Tech-Prep to Career Quest.
The changes resulting from implementation of Career Quest are intended to enhance both the career preparation of all students and the appeal of vocational offerings at DVC. By the 1993-1994 school year, the partnership had introduced six changes that can affect students from their middle school years through their college program:
The details and significance of these changes are discussed next under three broad topics: (1) articulation and programs of study; (2) curriculum and instructional changes; and (3) the guidance process. The final section discusses the governance of the consortium and its resources.
The Dothan consortium's articulation agreements specify equivalencies between secondary and postsecondary courses and conditions under which high school students can earn college credit. Under virtually all of the agreements, a minimum grade of B is necessary for the high school level course to qualify for college credit. A grade of A guarantees that credit will be awarded, while a B grade usually requires a student to take a "challenge test," developed jointly by DVC and college instructors, to demonstrate the relevant competencies. Under the general agreement between Dothan City Schools and Wallace Community College, credit for articulated high school courses is granted when a student who meets these conditions enrolls at the college, and the credit appears on the student's college transcript just as if it had been earned at the college.
Under Career Quest, all students choose a general career direction, but in school year 1993-1994, their choice has limited effect on their high school program after 10th grade. On the basis of their interests and goals, students select one of four broad career clusters at the end of ninth grade: (1) industrial/engineering; (2) business/information systems; (3) health/human services; or (4) arts and communications. This choice determines which one-semester "career cluster course" students take in 10th grade. Further implications of this choice were being defined in fall 1993. The district was working to finalize the identification of science, math, and occupational courses most appropriate for each cluster, so that counselors could direct students to relevant courses. For example, students in the health/human services cluster with an interest in health occupations would be encouraged to take anatomy rather than some other 11th-grade science course. Although all students choose a career cluster, they do not necessarily take vocational courses. However, the district is working with counselors to require students who do not intend to pursue four-year college degrees to take at least one DVC course related to their chosen career cluster.
The four one-semester cluster courses, which were taught for the first time in school year 1993-1994, have a common core as well as elements pertaining to each career area. All four courses include units on knowing yourself and exploring career options. Each course also includes material on the occupations that are grouped in the cluster; these units most often involve exercises that expose students to common industry terminology and basic skills. For example, the health/human services cluster course has units on nutrition, disease, and first aid; the industrial/engineering cluster course has units on scales and measuring, sketching, CAD applications, and blueprint reading. The cluster courses are taught by teachers selected by the districts, all of whom have taught some type of related occupational course. These teachers are also responsible for inviting guest speakers into the classroom and developing special projects for students. Students in each cluster course spend some time in newly built career centers at their home high school, completing interest inventories and researching a paper on a career of interest.
Implementation of the cluster courses has involved some scheduling difficulties. The district's new graduation requirements allowed room for few electives in students' schedules, particularly for 10th-graders who were required by the state to enroll in a semester of health and a semester of driver's education. The Dothan partnership, which from the start had full support from the state Department of Education, had to seek waivers from state regulations to replace the health requirement with the cluster course.
Dothan also applied for and received a waiver to reduce instruction in state-funded vocational programs from three to two hours each day and to shorten them from three-year to two-year programs (in 11th and 12th grade), to accommodate the new Career Quest courses and requirements. Still, potential vocational education courses were crowded out of students' schedules because many students choose music or sports as their one elective. In 1993, Dothan submitted a proposal to the state for an additional waiver to change the scheduling plan to a semesterized, eight-block day. Under this plan, students would have only four 96-minute classes each day during a semester. They would choose eight courses each year, with two of the four core academic subjects scheduled each semester. District supervisors believe this schedule will facilitate interdisciplinary and team teaching, because teachers will have one period off each day. The longer periods will also allow time for extended labs and special projects. Most important for Career Quest and Tech-Prep, the new schedule will provide more opportunities for electives, including vocational education.
First-year experience with the newly required 9th- and 10th-grade courses also provided guidance for refining the courses themselves. The curricula for these courses were developed by a team that included district and college administrative staff, teachers, and business and industry representatives. However, once the career cluster courses were under way, district supervisors discovered what they considered unnecessary overlaps in career exploration activities between the cluster courses and regular 10th-grade English. It also became clearer to consortium staff that in order to stimulate interest in career options, they had to vary the class format with videos and guest speakers, and that especially dynamic teachers were needed to present the cluster course curriculum effectively.
Implementation of the Applied Communications curriculum, however, raised some concerns. This course, which was available to 12th-grade students in 1993-1994 as "Tech English," was viewed by counselors in at least one high school as suitable primarily for non-college-bound students who were in the work-study program or had particular academic difficulties. English teachers felt that the course lacked adequate study of literature and failed to develop the skills they thought were important. At the same time, they felt the curriculum was not very relevant to the world of work and required instructors to teach material that was outside their realm of expertise. As a result, changes will be made for 1994-1995. Selected modules from the Applied Communications curriculum will be incorporated into English classes for all four high school grades. In 12th grade, the class will be an approximately equal mix of literature and applied communications modules.
Applied academics courses are available to all students, but counselors guide students to them somewhat selectively. By school year 1993-1994, the district was offering nine sections of Applied Math I, two of Applied Math II, six of Principles of Technology, and two of Applied Communications--spread across the two high schools. Counselors generally advised students with weaker skills to take Applied Communications but less often to take Applied Math or Principles of Technology. These latter courses include a broader mix of students--Applied Math because the original teachers could be persuaded to take the class on only if it included some students who had already taken algebra, and Principles of Technology because algebra I or Applied Math II is a prerequisite.
Despite the broad application of these career development components, there are implicit distinctions made between students who are preparing for four-year college and those who are not. Although students do not make any explicit choice between a College Prep and Tech-Prep program, counselors make such a distinction when students reach 11th grade. They designate Tech-Prep students according to the progress they have made toward achieving an advanced diploma, the high school degree required to enter a four-year college program in Alabama. Students who have taken any general education courses, who have not taken at least two years of a foreign language, or whose math sequence up to that point makes it impossible to take college preparation math by 12th grade will be granted a Standard Diploma. Starting in school year 1994-1995, all such students will be designated for Tech-Prep in the guidance folder maintained by their counselors. These students will be required to enroll in vocational courses at DVC or at their high schools as a way of improving their preparation for work. From students' perspective, however, they will not be in an identified Tech-Prep program or track.
Both Tech-Prep and College Prep students will begin participating in career exposure activities in the seventh grade, under a district plan for career exploration and the development of occupational goals. In seventh and eighth grades, they will take nine-week career development courses based on Maine's PREP curriculum. The courses help students begin to understand their aptitudes and interests, using commercially available interest inventories, videos on the world of work, guest speakers, and special exercises designed to increase their knowledge of potential careers and job attributes. The courses also cover some life and employment skills, such as budgeting, interviewing, and how to look for jobs. During 7th and 8th grade, the courses introduce students to occupations in the four groups highlighted in the 10th-grade cluster courses. Students use the school library to gather information about career areas and then report on them to their class. Starting in school year 1994-1995, middle school students will begin developing "student profile" folders that will move with them to high school. The folders will serve as portfolios; students will be encouraged to accumulate and include the results of their interest and aptitude assessments, documentation of their educational preferences or plans, records of their work experience, and evidence of any special skills or strengths.
In high school, students participate in many of these same career development activities in regular academic classes and the new courses developed as part of Career Quest. Ninth-grade social studies teachers, for example, spend one day discussing how different occupations fit into the four career clusters and the types of personal attributes and interests that are needed for occupations in each cluster. In another class period, students visit the career center and learn how to use the computerized interest and aptitude inventories and other resources. As part of a ninth-grade English assignment, students gather information from the center about a particular career and present an oral report to the class. In the ninth-grade course on keyboarding, computers, and work readiness, students learn more about the computer-based career planning and assessment tools in the career center and the characteristics of occupations in each of the four clusters. The district expects these 9th-grade activities to prepare students to select a career cluster at the end of 10th grade.
Career development activities will continue in grades 10 to 12, with increasing focus on developing educational plans to meet occupational goals. In the 10th-grade cluster courses, introduced in school year 1993-1994, students are expected to review the educational preparation necessary for their careers of interest and to identify postsecondary institutions with strengths in these areas. Cluster teachers are expected to help students develop educational plans for the remaining years of high school and college, including 2 + 2 plans for students intending to enter community or technical colleges. Activities for 11th and 12th grades will be introduced for the first time in school year 1994-1995. In 11th grade, the career center and English classes will expose students to procedures for taking college entrance exams, completing college applications, searching for jobs, picking a college, and getting a scholarship. In 12th grade, students will be required to use the career center three times during the year and to complete a resume as part of an English assignment.3
Most of the career exploration and planning activities implemented as part of Career Quest revolve around the career center maintained at each of the high schools. These areas were specially constructed and outfitted as part of Career Quest--at the request of, and to gain the cooperation of, school counselors. District staff considered counselor support for the Career Quest reforms and objectives particularly important, because counselors had historically resisted referring students to DVC and focused more on students planning to attend four-year colleges. The district also sought to ensure counselors' cooperation by including them in the early planning of Career Quest. Counselors participated in the examination of reform models, the selection of Tech-Prep, and the steering committee formed to review and approve the initiative's design. They also developed the career and educational planning activities that were incorporated into classroom curricula. Initial concern among counselors that the career centers would be underutilized if they were simply "available" to students, rather than the focus of mandatory activities, led to the incorporation of career center activities into course curricula..
Starting in school year 1994-1995, the governance of Career Quest will be folded into the work of regular district staff. Career Quest is now considered part of the regular districtwide curriculum, so issues relating to the new components are expected to be discussed in the same manner as other secondary-level issues. As a result, the original steering committee has been disbanded and its responsibilities given to the district's new secondary and middle school advisory councils, which will include more representatives from the key groups on the earlier steering committee as well as parents.
From the very start, funds for Career Quest were spent on direct planning and implementation rather than on general administration. In spring 1989, the early partners received a special state grant to plan their reform efforts, even before federal Tech-Prep funding was available. Dothan City Schools then received an $87,500 two-year Title IIIE implementation grant starting in 1991 and another $20,000 in Title IIIE funds for school year 1993-1994. Although a core group of administrators from the district and Wallace Community College prepared most of the planning documents and curricula and coordinated implementation, their role as consortium staff was integrated into their regular job responsibilities and paid for out of normal district and college operating budgets. The partners have instead used their Tech-Prep funds to purchase curriculum packages, prepare lab facilities for applied academic courses, and offer staff development. The consortium also received a special grant from a corporate foundation to fund the development of the two high school career centers.
2 The district also plans to purchase a curriculum called Chemistry in the Community, developed by the American Chemistry Society.
3 Students will be expected to sign in and out of the career center as documentation of their use of the facility.
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[IV. East Peoria, Illinois]