Delivering Effective School-to-Work Transition Services for All Students

Kathleen Paris (1994) observes that "professional development for creating school-to-work transition systems should conform to standards for any effective educational effort, but involves unique challenges to create a sequence of activities that: is comprehensive, involving educators K-14 or K-16, but which includes activities appropriate to the various levels; involves business and community representatives; and provides participants with tools for collaborative planning, problem-solving and teamwork that will sustain the change effort." (p. 40) Paris highlights two school-to-work transition components that require professional development activities: work-based learning and career guidance. The following excerpts from Paris's book, A Leadership Model for Planning and Implementing Change for School- to-Work Transition (1994), describe these two components and suggest the importance of professional development in making them work:

How Work-Based Learning Supports School-to-Work Transition
Work experience in the community, whether paid or unpaid, should be an integral part of every student's school-to-work transitional experiences. Through work experience, students have an opportunity to see, firsthand, how what they learn in school is used in the work world. It provides them the opportunity to develop their skills in communication and problem-solving an puts them in contact with adults who may act as mentors and positive role models. It gives students a taste of what various careers entail on a day-to-day basis, which alone may be an invaluable career exploration activity. Through work-experience activities, students often identify careers they do not wish to pursue, which is part of the total career decision-making process. Both efforts, whether work experience to enhance students' educational experiences (as in Tech Prep) or work experience as a means of learning specific occupational skills (as in youth apprenticeship), require that educators and business, industry, and labor representatives work more closely together than has ever been the case in the past. (pp. 32-33)
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How Career Guidance Supports School-to-Work Transition
Career guidance activities must be available to all students in any school-to-work transition effort. These activities are most effective when they are part of a K-12 comprehensive developmental guidance program that provides students with career development activities over a period of years in a manner appropriate to their age group. Career counseling must come out of the counselor's office and into the classroom and community. Career development activities should be provided by a variety of people inside and outside the school under the leadership of the counselor. (p. 34)
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In summary, a developmental guidance program is led by the school counselor, but implemented through experiences provided by teachers and other staff and by business and community representatives who are involved with students in work-based learning, mentoring, or career advisement roles. (p. 36).

Excerpted with permission from:
Paris, K. A. (1994). A leadership model for planning and implementing change for school-to-work transition. Madison, WI: Center on Education and Work, University of Wisconsin-Madison.