Audience Questions

I continually hear from middle school students that they need teachers of color to help them feel connected. Have you heard this need from your focus groups?

Yes, our students have expressed this need too, and it was one of the main reasons for organizing the “Pizza with the Purpose” events. Getting more teachers of color will be a long process, so the students decided to connect with professionals of color in the community. This gave them the opportunity to explore different careers but also, and perhaps more importantly, allowed for informal communication and connected them to successful adults who look like them.

How do you track summer melt for outside of greater Seattle or local colleges?

Summer melt is mostly a local phenomenon because it relates to community and technical colleges that do not require a lengthy application process. For Bellevue School District (BSD) students all those schools are local, and about 80% of the students go to Bellevue College.

What is being done to increase vocational education for non-college bound students?

At the moment, BSD is offering some vocational CTE classes. However, the majority of effort is being spent on preparing all the students for college, and all students are encouraged to pursue post-secondary education. We believe that some students would benefit from a more targeted approach for vocational training, especially outlining its financial and development aspects.

Recent research shows students who have a career focus early in their educational career have a 9% increase in graduation. How early should we start this work?

Bellevue students can take CTE classes in middle and high school. The challenge is that not all students are aware of the offering or can take advantage of it. We believe that there should be age relevant career education at all school levels.

What defines a career, and why does it “end” at 26?

This is a great question and one that we spent a lot of time discussing. For the purpose of our collaborative a career is defined as a job that earns living wage. It is important to note that we are talking about a “career of their choice” which indicates that it is a job that the young person is trained/has studied to do.

We chose age 26 as the end of the spectrum because by that age the vast majority of our students will have completed their studies and had one year to find employment. Our key indicator is “the percentage and number of BSD alumni employed 1 year after completing post-secondary education.”

Are you going to incorporate Cascadia and LWIT in the summer melt program?

Yes, we are planning to roll out the summer melt program to other colleges after the Bellevue College pilot is completed.

Read More

Thought Leadership  |  School Readiness  |  Summer & Extended Learning  |  Attendance  |   Mental Health and Wellbeing  |  Business Engagement Group  |  Community Engagement for Cultural Integration  |  Eastside Pathways Racial Equity Team  |  Data Council

Back to Main Page

Learn more about our collaboratives

If you would like to get involved with or share your expertise in helping lead a collaborative, email info@eastsidepathways.org