Among Arizona’s school districts, Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District is the standout star at training students for college and career success.
On May 4, COCSD received the Arizona College Access Network and Arizona GEAR UP “Early College and Career Awareness” award along with four other districts. To qualify, the districts were required to have at least three of their teachers take part in 20 hours of training on college and career advising for middle school students.
AZCAN is an organization dedicated to ensuring post-high school success for all Arizonans, especially low-income, first-generation students.
GEAR UP is a federally-funded college-access program that aims to increase the number of students from low-income communities who enter and succeed in post-secondary education.
Bullhead City Elementary School District, Douglas Unified School District, Holbrook Unified School District and Humboldt Unified School District each trained and certified three teachers. COCSD, meanwhile, trained and certified nine.
“The goal is to expose them to college and career readiness as soon as possible,” COCSD College and Career Readiness Coach Heather Wacker said. “We do expose them to different routes and not just college …. We’ve got to give them avenues and options.”
As head of the district’s Arizona GEAR UP Middle Grade Initiative — made possible through a Northern Arizona University grant — Wacker oversees upward of 250 eighth-graders over the course of the school year. According to her, many students don’t know the reality of what awaits them after high school. Making sure they are in touch with their goals and understand how to achieve them is job number one for Wacker.
The support network begins with the teachers of COCSD; Wacker explained that without their direct intervention and guidance, students, particularly those from low-income families, might never understand what kind of commitment is necessary to succeed in high school and beyond.
“These are conversations we have to have with kids, because they don’t know the opportunities available to them,” Wacker said, adding that training teachers is a necessary way to ensure students’ needs are addressed.
“Educational professionals in our GEAR UP schools realize the important difference they can make by helping students begin their high school journeys already on track to graduate college and career ready,” Arizona GEAR UP Executive Director Teena Olszewski stated. “Pre-post surveys of our Middle Grade Initiative participants show that the training significantly increases educators’ confidence in their abilities to have that kind of impact with the students in their schools.”
