Lessons from work-based learning in Iowa schools could inform Legislature

CEDAR RAPIDS — Educators, businesses and colleges are partnering in Eastern Iowa to give more students the chance to explore careers while they still are in high school — and even graduate with apprenticeship experience and certificates.

Jeff Weld, executive director of the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council, learned about the work-based learning initiatives happening in the region at a roundtable discussion hosted last week by the Grant Wood Area Education Agency — part of a tour across the state to learn about these models.

Grant Wood AEA provides education services to seven counties in Eastern Iowa, including Linn, Johnson and Iowa.

Weld said Iowa employers are “desperate for employees.” Historically, employers have waited until people are 18 or 22 and have graduated high school or college to look at them as job candidates.

“By then, the talent pool has dwindled,” Weld said. “How many people graduate with a degree in computer programming? Only a few. But how many 12-year-olds might have chosen that field if they had been introduced to it in sixth grade?”

“If you’re an Iowa employer, you don’t want to meet (job candidates on) graduation night,” Weld said. “There’s fewer of them and the competition is intense. It’s a bidding war for talent.”

Hearing about the successes and challenges of work-based learning could help inform legislation that will “loosen some of the inhibitive rules” that are roadblocks for every student having the opportunity to engage in work-based learning, Weld said. Some of these challenges include funding, training teachers in work-based learning, transportation and community awareness of these programs, Weld said.

“What new policies are going to be needed for this to work?” Weld asked.

The Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council was established in July 2011 as a partnership with educators, companies and students and families to address policies and programs to improve Iowa’s educational system. It became a part of the Iowa Department of Education in July. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.

Weld said there are students — who he called “lost at ‘C’” as in the letter grade C — who are “drifting through school.” Work-based learning could help them find a passion and “ignite their fires,” Weld said.

People also learn better when the information they’re learning is clearly relevant and applicable to a real-world problem, Weld said. That’s how students should be taught, too, he said.

An Algebra 1 class could partner with a manufacturer in town who provides the students with math problems they face in the industry. “That’s the curriculum for the year,” Weld said as an example. “Kids are going to learn it because it does really matter.”

“I’ve met countless kids who say, ‘I found a purpose, I found a direction, I found a cause, I found an interest.’ because we got out of a traditional school model,” Weld said.

Before the panel discussion, students from Williamsburg High School demonstrated welding simulators, available to K-12 schools in the Grant Wood AEA region. The welding simulators are a safe way to get kids excited and interested in the career, educators say.

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Grant Wood AEA last year began sponsoring a new welding apprenticeship, placing two high school apprentices at Kinze Manufacturing in Williamsburg this year. Kelli Kranz, human resources director at Kinze, said the large manufacturer in a small community is hoping the apprenticeship model can help attract new talent to the area by engaging job candidates early.

One of the challenges, however, is transporting students to these experiences, whether it be an apprenticeship or a job shadow. “Accessibility is a huge issue,” she said at the panel discussion.

The first registered apprenticeship in Iowa for high school students launched in 2017, Weld said. Over the last six years, the program has grown to 150 apprenticeships and “thousands of kids.”

But the number of students who have work-based learning opportunities still isn’t enough, Weld said.

“It’s still a fraction of the kids — 20-30 percent” Weld said. “That’s a sad fact. It should be almost 100 percent of kids.”

Because of work-based learning partnerships in the region, Ashlyn Blockhus is working as a certified nursing assistant at Meth-Wick Community, a senior living center, after having graduated in May from Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids.

Blockhus, who was a panelist Friday, said she didn’t have career interests or goals while in high school until a teacher told her she should give the certified nursing assistance a try.

Blockhus enrolled in Grant Wood AEA’s apprenticeship program, where she worked at Meth-Wick while earning her certification. The program is being funded by an Iowa Workforce Development grant to help address the health care workforce shortage.

Amber Jedlicka, director of operations at Meth-Wick who also was on the panel, said the health care industry has been fighting against stagnation.

Before the apprenticeship, Meth-Wick spent $1 million on a recruiting agency, which was “not sustainable.” After the high school apprenticeship program was introduced, Meth Wick went from two years of almost no job applicants to “struggling to find places” for high school students interested in apprenticing, Jedlicka said.

Lailah Avery, a senior in the Marion Homeschool Assistance Program, learned she does not want to be a teacher after enrolling in the Education Career Academy through Kirkwood Community College. After an internship with Chains Interrupted, a nonprofit in Cedar Rapids working to end human trafficking, Avery realized she was interested in criminal justice.

She is now enrolled in Kirkwood’s Criminal Justice Career Academy, earning college credit for free while in high school.

“It means a lot to me to have this opportunity because I don’t have to pay for it,” said Avery, who also was on the panel. “I get to take classes and experiment and see what I like and what I don’t like about that job field.”

Other panelists were Cindy Dietz with Collins Aerospace, Lisa Daily, a school counselor in the Belle Plaine Community School District, Tara Troester, career and technical education curriculum facilitator for the Cedar Rapids Community School District, Kristine Bullock, director of Workplace Learning Connections and Dawn Bowlus, director of the Jacobson Institute with the University of Iowa

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