Rural Iowa schools deliver on college and career readiness

VINTON — Using a 290-degree high-pressure manual press, Addy Phippen printed graphics on T-shirts that were being sold by her business class at Vinton-Shellsburg High School.

Phippen, 17, a senior, is taking the final course in the school’s business program — which includes accounting, marketing and personal finance — because she thought it fit well with her career dream of working in sports marketing someday.

“I love sports. It’s pretty much my entire life. I can sit down and watch any sporting event, and I just enjoy it,” Phippen said Wednesday as she operated the press.

Printmaking is new since last January to the business program, but the students already have sold more than 500 items of clothing to their peers and people in the community. T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, hats and koozies designed for Vinton-Shellsburg High School, as well as for different athletic teams and clubs, are being made by the business students and sold through their virtual store called Viking Edition.

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It’s one way the school is offering students hands-on experiences to learn about entrepreneurship. Not only do students create the clothing, but they learn at what price point it should be sold, how to market it and how to keep a budget.

It’s just one example of how Vinton-Shellsburg High School is incorporating college and career readiness into its curriculum and preparing students for the future by equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in college or the workforce.

The district’s location in rural Iowa, however, means its has to get creative in how it delivers college and career readiness to students.

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A strong partnership with Kirkwood

The Vinton-Shellsburg district is about 34 miles from Kirkwood Community College’s main campus in southwest Cedar Rapids and 26 miles from the Linn County Regional Center in Hiawatha.

Instead of having high school students traveling to either location to take in-person college courses under concurrent enrollment — in which they both college and high school credit — Superintendent Kyle Koeppen said what’s worked best is offering in-house pathways and partnering with local businesses so students can access hands-on experiences in the career fields that interest them.

Much of this success is due to the district’s strong partnership with Kirkwood Community College through a workbased learning coordinator shared with the Benton and Williamsburg school districts.

Louise Fleming, a teaching and learning facilitator in the Vinton-Shellsburg district, said 42 percent of high school students in the district have taken three academic years of a chosen pathway — whether that’s agriculture, industrial technology, family and consumer science or business. A much smaller number has participated in internships and apprenticeships, but Fleming said the district is working with Kirkwood to grow those opportunities for students.

The district also offers concurrent enrollment classes taught on its own campus. Superintendent Koeppen, however, said it’s harder to find enough students to enroll in “niche” classes, meaning there isn’t the demand to hire a full-time teacher for them.

Many of the internship and apprenticeship opportunities are created because a student voices interest in a certain industry — and a partnership emerges that gives that student access to hands-on learning, Fleming said.

Schools need businesses ‘expertise’

Laura Miner, the district’s shared workbased learning coordinator from Kirkwood, began working more closely with Vinton-Shellsburg, Benton and Williamsburg districts about three years ago when her position began to be funded through a state program that encourages sharing between districts. The focus has given her time to work directly with students as they explore career options.

“That’s my favorite thing about the work I do,” Miner said.

Miner said she’s also seen more buy-in from educators in the region when it comes to offering college and career readiness programs to students. “I think that’s where it’s most important is you have those teachers that see students every day encouraging students to participate,” she said.

There is not a regional center in Benton County where the Vinton-Shellsburg and Benton districts are located, which means there is not an on-site location readily available for those students.

Kristine Bullock, director of Kirkwood’s Workplace Learning connection, said educators are exploring ways that local businesses — like those in automotive or welding — can host academies through Kirkwood at their own business locations.

Already, Vinton-Shellsburg has many business partners that have opened their doors to offer students internships and apprenticeships, Miner said.

Bullock said the need for K-12 school and business partnerships remains as more and more Iowa schools push college and career readiness. Even a single job shadow can influence a student to pursue a career opportunity, she said.

“I don’t think we have a lot of businesses that host our job shadows that say it wasn’t worth their time,” Bullock said. “We want their expertise.”

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Rural location can create ‘bumps in the road’

Benton Community School District Superintendent James Bieschke said the location of the district can create “bumps in the road” for career pathways. But being in a rural community, students and families already are used to traveling some distance, he said.

“If they’re really interested in a career field that isn’t offered in Benton County and they have to go to Cedar Rapids” — which is about a 30-minute drive — “for the most part, they’re willing to do that,” Bieschke said.

In Iowa in 2016, House File 2392 redesigned the career and academic planning process to increase emphasis on career and technical education, integrating high-quality, career-related experiences designed to increase student engagement and align students’ interests with local, regional and state labor market needs.

School districts are required to include an outline of how they plan to provide career exploration opportunities to students in grades K-12, said Anna Selk, associate superintendent of the Benton Community School District.

Selk said that for the most part, students requests for industry-specific internships and apprenticeships can be fulfilled “through some very willing business partners” locally.

“Oftentimes, we also hope students are able to pursue their passions or a lifestyle that brings them back to Benton County,” Selk said. “Continuing to expose them to careers and industries that are here increases our changes of that.”

Selk said more and more students are choosing paths aside from four-year college after high school. Part of this could be the prohibitive cost of college. Another part could be the need of trade industries for employees.

The district this year began inviting industry professionals to speak to classrooms of students in grades 7-12 with the goal of talking about their own careers and the paths it took them to get there.

All of this is to better prepare students for their future, Bieschke said.

“You have to adapt. What are the industries out there? What is of interest to our students? You have to stay on top of changes in the work world and college world to prepare students to be as successful as possible,” he said.

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