Former Waukegan High School CTE and Tech Campus Coordinator Marshall Ruetz used YouScience Discovery and Insights reporting to uncover and connect the school’s student talent with area employers. Waukegan High School is located in Illinois’ Lake County, Illinois’ third largest by population. The areas’ employers include a number of manufacturers.
Challenge
In a time of a growing skills gap, Lake County manufacturers needed to create awareness with the talent of tomorrow. Waukegan High School was teaching students valuable skills in Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses, but the area’s manufacturing companys’ pipelines weren’t attracting student talent.
CTE and Tech Campus Coordinator Marshall Ruetz was confronted with the challenge of how the school’s CTE program could better uncover and align students with local employer needs.
Solution
Ruetz was introduced to the YouScience Platform and quickly saw an answer in its CTE/Perkins Report. The report lets educators see the number of students who’ve completed a YouScience Discovery aptitude-based career-guidance assessment, breaking results down by gender, ethnicity, and graduation year. Educators see the number of students in the student body by aptitude, interest, and overall fit for each CTE pathway offered. They quickly find the top three CTE pathways for each student by aptitude, interest, and overall fit. And they find the best-fit, in-demand careers for students and get them on the right education pathways.
“When you guys came out with the CTE report, I downloaded it and emailed it to our lead counselor. We opened it together and I showed her how we can highlight the kids for manufacturing. If they don’t know of a career, they can’t be interested in it.“
Results
By identifying the students most likely to excel in manufacturing careers, Ruetz was able to work with the local community college and area manufacturers to develop a comprehensive talent pipeline. He explained, “What YouScience does is it measures what they’re good at and how they think and then it introduces them to those careers that they don’t know yet, that they have never been exposed to.”
Now, Waukegan High School students earn college credits for each year of the program they complete and have the opportunity to hold an apprenticeship with local employers.
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