What would it take for ALL students to be workforce ready?
CWDC Education Consultant Sami Mooney joined the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness (PWR) Office at the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) for the fourth and fifth stops in the 2024-2025 PWR regional trainings.
View other blog posts highlighting insights about other locations.
Southwest Region: What’s on a Counselor’s Plate in Colorado?
In December and January of this school year, CDE’s PWR office hosted regional trainings in Denver and Greeley, pulling in attendees from the Denver metro and eastern Colorado region. Between the tours, more than 350 participants were present, including counselors, principals, district administrators, superintendents and others serving 50 school districts or local education providers.
A core theme for both the Denver metro and eastern tours was operationalizing how to reach all students when student needs are all across the board as it relates to postsecondary and workforce readiness. Some common questions from attendees included:
- How do I better assess student needs so that resources get to the right place?
- How could I engage my colleagues across the building and district to get more buy in from different teams?
- How do we know that students are getting what they need?
While participants are actively thinking about their systems inside of the district, school leaders are also focused on how education is meeting the larger needs of Colorado’s economy. The following are concepts leaders are also engaging in:
- Infusing labor and economic data into processes to ensure educational programs and activities are aligned with the needs of the job market.
- Engaging with sector partnerships to connect with industry in a collective, regional way.
- Supporting students with post-high school planning to be sure students have a clear next step to get to their postsecondary and workforce goals.
Application to the State of Colorado’s Continued Work
CDE released its strategic plan, effective 2025-2028. The plan establishes a big goal for the Coloradan graduating class of 2029, that 100-percent will have achieved at least one of the following:
- Earned a quality, in-demand non-degree credential.
- Earned 12 college credits that count toward a postsecondary credential.
- Participated in one high-quality, work-based learning (WBL) opportunity (from Learning Through Work and Learning at Work sections of the Work-based Learning Continuum)
“Insights from the Denver metro and eastern regional tours confirmed it takes a full school system working together to serve each student in the pursuit of the 2029 goal,” says Mooney.
It's a common vernacular in education to say “each student” instead of every student.
“When educators say this, they are alluding to the various needs that students have in order to reach the same goal. Each student could have the exact same resources and interventions, but have a different result than their peers,” Mooney says.
The regional training focused on taking districts and school leaders through a process to design an Individual Career and Academic Plan (ICAP) system using the Colorado Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (COMTSS). ICAP is the process and documentation of activities that prepare a student for the future.
“Thinking in this way isn’t new to education, using practices like COMTSS that is frequently used in reading and behavior interventions. The COMTSS process can also be applied to postsecondary and workforce readiness to fill gaps and strategize interventions,” says Mooney.
The PWR team looks forward to continuing collaboration with the Office of Learning Supports at CDE to support our education system in serving each student through the five COMTSS core components.
- Team-Driven Shared Leadership
- Data-Based Problem Solving and Decision- Making
- Family, School, and Community Partnerships
- Comprehensive Screening and Assessment System
- Layered Continuum of Supports