Cedar Rapids school leaders exploring the future of college and career education

CEDAR RAPIDS — Cindy Fiester proudly watched as her 17-year-old daughter Natalie signed on to be a patient care technician apprenticing at St. Luke’s Hospital beginning in January.

Before Cindy — now a nurse at Linn County Public Health — graduated from nursing school about 30 years ago, she didn’t have the option of working in her career field at a hospital as a high school student. She has watched her daughter Natalie — following Cindy’s footsteps — discover a passion for nursing, first earning her certified nursing assistant license through Kirkwood Community College’s Patient Care Academy.

Natalie, a senior at Kennedy High School, was one of about 28 students Thursday from eight school districts in Eastern Iowa to commit to a 2,000-hour apprenticeship through UnityPoint Health Systems.

“We’re looking for new talent every day. It’s a challenge for us to fill all our roles to meet the needs of the community. You’re in high demand, but we thank you for choosing St. Luke’s,” Casey Greene, marketing president at UnityPoint Health, said to the students.

UnityPoint Health is one of 18 employers in Eastern Iowa working with Grant Wood AEA to place students in health care, welding and manufacturing apprenticeships.

This apprenticeship was made possible through a $1.2 million grant received by the Grant Wood Area Education Agency — which provides educational services to schools and educators in seven Iowa counties — from Iowa Workforce Development to help address the health care workforce shortage.

“They have the skills, the knowledge and the certifications to begin their career in a noble profession in the health care field, and very few students have that opportunity,” said John Speer, chief administrator for Grant Wood AEA. “Very rarely do you get the opportunity in education to go beyond the textbooks, the classroom and your school building. They’re learning in a real-world setting.”

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CR schools implementing new college, career education opportunities

Ten of the students who signed on to work with St. Luke’s next year are in the Cedar Rapids Community School District, which promised a renewed focus on career and technical education as part of the district’s strategic plan, approved in September by the Cedar Rapids school board.

Cedar Rapids school leaders have set a goal of to improving graduation rates by 10 percent and ensuring every graduate leaves with college credit or industry certification by May 2027.

“A big goal in our strategic plan is to increase graduation rates with students graduating with something more to add value to that high school diploma. That looks like industry-recognized certification or college credit,” said Adam Zimmermann, Cedar Rapids schools executive director of innovation.

Apprenticeships like the one with UnityPoint St. Luke’s Hospital in collaboration with the school district, Grant Wood AEA and Kirkwood Community College is a good start. But district officials want to begin introducing students to college and career opportunities as early as elementary school.

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Implementing that needs to be done purposefully instead of the “haphazard” way it’s been approached in the past, said Tara Troester, Cedar Rapids schools’ content lead for career and technical education.

The school district initially was relying on a portion of a $220 million general obligation bond to fund new career and technical education additions at Kennedy, Jefferson and Washington high schools. The bond was resoundingly rejected by voters last month.

Nevertheless, the work continues.

Investing in the Future Workforce

The school board approved a contract with Steele Dynamics Consulting Services to provide services to develop a three- to five-year action plan to create college and career pathways. The $70,000 contract is being funded by a federal magnet schools grant the district was awarded last year.

As a part of this effort, a task force was created for strategic planning collaboration to provide input on four to six high-skill, high-wage and high-demand career pathways that meet the demands of the Cedar Rapids area labor market, among other things.

Jay Steele, CEO and founder of Steele Dynamics, said the Cedar Rapids school district could begin opening its own career academies as early as fall of 2025. This fall, Steele was in Cedar Rapids to begin developing recommendations for new programming for the Cedar Rapids school district that aligns with career opportunities available in the area.

“In all the communities I see across the U.S., the businesses and postsecondary partners are so willing to support teachers and students in their community,” Steele said. “It’s an investment into their future workforce and into the community where we live and work.”

Steele was director for career education at St. Johns County School in Florida in the 1990s and early 2000s, where he first created and implemented the career academy program. He caught the eye of Metro Nashville Public Schools and worked with them to implement career academies, which lead to the district seeing the graduation rate increase from 58 percent to 82 percent within five years, Steele said.

Introducing students to career education at a younger age can help them explore what they want to do — or don’t want to do — after high school.

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“It allows students to go a little bit farther. It’s not only career prep. Kids are choosing their major and getting college credit. If they want to change their minds, for example, ‘I took a health care class in high school, and it’s not for me.’ That is so valuable,” Steele said.

Hiring teachers with the experience and certification needed for programs like engineering can be challenging, Steele said. It can be a “big pay cut” for some people to leave their industry to teach, he said.

He encourages school districts to work with leaders in the industries. Some people, for example, who have had careers as engineers might be ready to retire from their field but want to keep working.

CR schools sees low participation in high school students taking college classes

One of the challenges as Cedar Rapids schools develops its college and career programs will be what to offer on-location at its high schools so as not to compete with Kirkwood Community College.

This could look like adding more intro-level classes for students in middle school and freshman and sophomores in high school, From there, they can advance to Kirkwood classes if interested.

Kristine Bullock, director of Kirkwood Workplace Learning Connection, a career exploration service for 6-12th graders, said it’s expensive to outfit a class for job-specific training. The regional center already has the infrastructure and is available to students in many school districts.

During the 2022-23 school year, more than 1,000 high school students participated in 15 different Career Academies at a Kirkwood Regional Center. The three career academies with the most student participation were patient care; premed, nursing and professional health careers; and advanced manufacturing and welding.

Cedar Rapids schools have among the lowest percentage of high school students taking both high school and college-level courses. Last year, 13.6 percent of students or 667 students total from Washington, Kennedy, Metro and Jefferson high schools were also enrolled in a dual credit class through Kirkwood. The region’s average is almost 26 percent of high school students taking dual-credit classes, a tuition savings of more than $9 million for Eastern Iowa students.

The low participation could be because Cedar Rapids schools offer more Advanced Placement classes — which students, if they pass a test, also can get college credit for — than some of the rural school districts in the area, said Bullock, who sits on the Cedar Rapids school districts’ college and career task force

The other reason is because transportation to the regional center in Hiawatha — which is where students in the Cedar Rapids Community School District would attend — is a barrier for some kids.

“We have to listen to what our schools need and what gaps they have, so we’re not creating something that competes with their programs,” Bullock said.

Agriculture program could be added in CR next year

One example of this is the conversations Kirkwood and Cedar Rapids school leaders are having about launching an agriculture education program, which the school district does not yet offer.

Kirkwood has the highest ranked agriculture program of community colleges in the U.S., Bullock said. “How can we get more students to realize what a great resource they have in their own backyard?”

Zimmermann said two agriculture classes could be offered at the Linn County Regional Center next fall.

Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com