Work-based learning (WBL) can transform the future for students who build skills, confidence and professional networks while employers can develop a strong early talent pipeline. The challenge is providing broad access to opportunities like apprenticeships, internships and project-based learning with employers, especially in rural Iowa. Waterloo Schools stands out for offering high-quality, in-depth WBL to its own students and students beyond its borders.
Waterloo is not the only school district that does this. But it’s an outstanding example, with Cedar Falls, Denver, Dike-New Hartford, Dunkerton, Hudson, Janesville, Jesup, North Tama and Union listed as school district partners on the Waterloo Career Center website, along with Columbus Catholic, Don Bosco and Waterloo Christian high schools. Brian “BJ” Meaney, Janesville Consolidated School District superintendent, said a sharing agreement with Waterloo Schools is critical to providing career and technical education (CTE) and related WBL to his students.
A regional vision for expanding CTE and WBL to benefit many partners has long been part of Waterloo Schools’ approach, said Jeff Frost, Waterloo Schools’ executive director of professional technical education. A state grant that helped pay for career center infrastructure plus ongoing collaboration with Hawkeye Community College and dozens of area businesses have all been instrumental to success, he said.
“The additional benefits of this approach, besides the extra students and supplemental weighting we receive (through Iowa’s school finance formula), is the fact that we are helping not only students in this region but our business partners in the entire region,” said Frost. “It’s also great to see so many students from so many other districts do great things together.”
Health care, construction trades, education, business, IT and culinary are fields with pathways at the career center. Students learn both at the center – including earning industry-recognized credentials – and out in the community. The more than three dozen business partners listed on the career center website are involved in a variety of ways, including career awareness activities like job shadows, as well as in-depth WBL like the nurse assistant Registered Apprenticeship with UnityPoint Health – Allen Hospital.
Other school districts have looked to Waterloo to find out how they can adapt its approach to preparing students for future careers, including Cedar Rapids, which has launched a multi-year initiative to create academies with career pathways at its five high schools.
Waterloo Schools’ goal over the next few years is for all students to do in-depth WBL before they graduate, Frost said, with at least 50 percent of high school students currently participating. Five years ago, recruiting businesses to be partners was a struggle, he said. But today, companies contact the district, and parents and students expect WBL to be available: “The community really has embraced this. Our goal is to train the future workforce that will stay in the Cedar Valley.”
Visit this link for more information on work-based learning in Iowa.