Learning and Living Committee

The Career Crawl is an event that brings groups of teachers out into local businesses to experience firsthand the types of jobs that are involved in that business and the educational foundation that is necessary for success.

The Princeton Public Schools focus on Career and College Readiness is outlined in the Strategic Plan goal 2. As a district, our goal is to prepare 21st century students to be career and college ready. The focus for this staff development day is to tour businesses and learn what skills employers are looking for as our students enter the workforce. These are skills that can be incorporated into standards at every grade.

The purpose of the business tours is for staff to learn what are the skills, will, aptitudes and attitudes needed for the workforce and individual careers. This also includes:

• What skills (technical and soft skills) employers are looking for?
• How is technology changing businesses?
• What is the future is in the field?

Princeton Public Schools staff will work in the afternoon to share with their Professional Learning Committees what they learned and how to implement what they learned in their grade or content area.

Focus for Pre-K through Grade 2

• Staff emphasis on social emotional learning (Skill) and growth mindset (Will)
• Educate parents on the importance of social emotional learning
• Building relationships with the business community
• Introduction to careers and community by bringing careers/businesses to school

Focus for Grades 3-5

• Expose students to businesses outside of school
• Link skills/learning to what is needed in the workplace (Skills, Will, Aptitude and Attitude) and align with chart.
• Stress the importance of citizenship through volunteering
• Continue to develop a growth mindset
• Staff emphasis on the importance of social emotional learning
• Continue to engage parents

Grades 6-8

• Explore how to connect the chart with “Ramp Up to Readiness”
• Teach the chart to students
• Use Service Learning to reflect upon Skill, Will, Aptitude and Attitude
• Continue to engage parents
• Continue to build on growth mindset
• Emphasize Social Emotional Learning

Grades 9-12

• Build opportunities for experiential learning (apprenticeships, job shadowing, internships, on the job training)
• Develop a web of people tied to the chart
• Coursework emphasis tied to the chart, by working with staff
• Parents--planning for post-secondary, what is their role at this age and how is it different
• Continue growth mindset
• Integrate the chart into “Ramp Up to Readiness”

Help all staff answer student questions “Are we ever going to use this?”

This is the work we are currently doing to build capacity in our community. The focus of the Learning and Living Committee in 2017/18 will be to develop real world experiential learning for the students of Princeton Public Schools by establishing meaningful opportunities for hands on learning through mentorship. internship and service learning experiences. Stay tuned!

Elementary, middle and high school teachers bring a variety of community speakers into the schools. They talk about their careers, and also about how academics are applied in the “real world”.

Students are taken out of the classroom setting to experience different educational experiences within the community.

High School students are able to participate in simulated job interviews that are conducted by local business partners in fields related to the students’ interests. The “interviewer” then offers feedback about the student’s interview and answers questions the student may have about the field.

Students have the opportunity to coordinate their high school classes with a job in a field related to their academic and occupational objectives. They receive school credit for both classroom and work experience.