Monday, July 30, 2007

The Real Deal at Sachem CSD

I had the privilege of working with Jeanette James, the Chair of the Business/ Career Development Department and her dedicated team at Sachem Central School District for two days last week. Sachem is one of the largest suburban school districts in New York State and serves over 15,000 students. They are also the largest customers of the CareerZone System and the people we look to for help in making the system more user friendly.

We spent two days reviewing the Real Game curriculum for 7 & 8 grade and 9 & 10 grade. The Real Game Series is an experiential career development curriculum that allows students to role play adult life and make decisions about where they want to live and how they spend their paycheck. The team at Sachem is using these programs to enhance an existing class for older students and as the framework of their newly revised Career and Financial Management class for 8th graders. It was a pleasure to watch as the group spent each day reviewing the materials and identifying how this supplemented an existing resource or filled a gap in the curriculum. Sachem already has a strong career development program but they consistently fine-tune their materials so that students continue to build skills and knowledge for the 21st century.

Under Jeanette's care, the Sachem CSD has integrated the Career Development and Occupational Studies (CDOS) learning standards into each child's educational experience. She has worked with academic and CTE teachers to identify the relevant skills they teach and explored ways of helping students use this information to plan for their futures. Each year, all 15,000 students have the opportunity to explore and plan for the future at least 4 times over the school year. If you're interested in how they do this, visit the Career Development webpage at Sachem for more information. Sachem is an example of how even the largest of schools can make career development work!

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