Objective 4: Create and Expand Partnerships

We believe offering a suite of authentic Work-Based Learning (WBL) opportunities enhances the high school experience and better prepares students for citizenship, post-secondary education, and workforce entry.

Career and Technical Education teachers will begin in 2015-16 strategically establishing Work Based Learning opportunities, such as Mentorship and Job Shadowing, as a guaranteed opportunity for children enrolled in the course, with support from the Career Specialists.

Transportation and DART worked together to survey schools on the number and type field trips and fieldwork experiences that took place. It was discovered that each school used different methodology to request and track these experiences. During the 2015-16 school year, school-based career counselors will track all forms of WBL during the school year through Power Schools. WBL data will be collected during the summer of 2016; based on the updated definitions and implementation and data collection system.

A School Board work session on Work Based Learning is planned for the late fall/early winter. As part of the Field Trip survey, school staff were asked to identify one strategy they and / or the school system will implement over the coming school year to improve the number and type of field trip and work experiences for their students. Strategies included: working with teachers on field trips available within walking distance of the school; sharing field trip experiences among PLC’s and vertical teams; and researching “virtual” field trip options.

During the 2015-16 school year, ACPS students gained valuable learning opportunities as a result of grant funding. For example, ACPS continued to serve as the lead agency on a $3.5 million U.S. DOE Investing in Innovation (i3) grant. Albemarle High School music students performed in the Savannah Jazz Festival, thanks to a $10,000 gift from BAMA Works. County high school students learned design thinking, and gained entrepreneurial experience, during a three-week project-based summer school program called Design, Make, Launch, which was the result of a $47,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Education. Perhaps the most-discussed grant of the past school year was XQ, a national competition for $10 million. While we did not win, ACPS was named one of 50 finalists nationally. Most importantly, however, the weeks of intense program design resulted in division leadership articulating a concrete, actionable plan to formalize what may well be a blueprint for the high school of the future concept, which the School Board has discussed at length.