FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
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Welcome to Voices, a national award winning podcast brought to you by the Seneca Valley School District.
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Jeff Krakoff: This is Jeff Krakoff. Now I'm joined by Darla Ramirez-Lightner, coordinator of Collegiate and Career affairs. How are you today?
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: I'm doing great today, Jeff. Thank you.
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Jeff Krakoff: So that's a big title. Can you explain to us what does that mean? What do you do?
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: Sure, sure. I'd love to be able to explain that. Um, yeah. I actually started out as a school counselor, and I've been in this district for 31 years. But as of four years ago, in the spring of 2019, I transitioned into this, um, coordinator of Collegiate and Career Affairs. I work with everything that touches college and career events. Anything that touches career curriculum and any other career opportunity. And I work closely with the secondary campus school counseling offices, seventh grade through 12th grade. Okay. So if you think about college and career, it's probably coming across my desk.
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Jeff Krakoff: Got it. So students in Seneca Valley have so many options. It can be four-year college, community college, technical or vocational field, the military going right into the workforce. What are some of the ways you help prepare students to figure out what's best for them and how to get there?
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: Yeah, I mean, I know that one of my biggest responsibilities, Jeff, I happen to work with the district's 339 K-12 comprehensive school counseling plan, and that's mandated by the state of Pennsylvania. The goal of that is to support the career readiness and future planning for all students beginning at that kindergarten level. So we with each grade level, you know, there is career curriculum that we explore with four different domains. We explore career awareness and preparation, career acquisition, career retention and advancement and entrepreneurship. So with those four domains, kindergarten through senior year graduate, you know, there is curriculum for the students and different lesson plans, different ways that they discover about themselves with the career exploration, how to find a job and how to prepare for a job, and what education paths you need to access. Retention and advancement in is how basically when you have a job, how to keep it and what's making, you know, what makes you a good employee and how can you advance through the company. And entrepreneurship, of course, is creating jobs.
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Jeff Krakoff: Got it. So I know there's a college and career speaker series. When does that happen? How often and what can students expect to experience with that?
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: Sure. Typically, this is a yearly series of topics. Okay. Or themes. And I have 5 to 6 times per year that I plan out in the summer and I plan these topics out to be timely and intentional for students and parents because both students and parents can attend these speaker series. I always invite an outside speaker presenter into Seneca Valley and they'll speak on the topic. There are student sign ups and parent sign ups that will be advertised. Some of the topics we did this year for 2022, 2023. The first was September. We hosted a college application process and we had Penn State University come in to talk about all the different applications, available deadlines, talk about personal essays, college applications, timeline, admission exams, all those things that for student applying to college that fall, it kicks off in the fall.
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: In October, we have the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency come in and they work with something called the financial aid form, the FAFSA form, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. And they come in to address basically how to fill out that form. They work with parents. We have a completion session for these parents that want to sign up. So that's timely because that application always opens up October 1st. In November, we had a college admissions testing session, which a lot of underclassmen, ninth grade, 10th grade, they attend this because they want to hear more about the SAT and the ACT and the differences between those two exams. So that's very timely. In February, we had an advanced placement course versus college and high school courses, which technically that means those dual enrollment courses we have in February. It was during our registration time for the next school year. So we wanted to bring in a speaker to talk a little bit about the differences between those two, but specifically talk about, if you choose in high school to take a dual enrollment course or at Seneca, we call them college in high school. The advantages at the college level, what does that look like? Because students can get ahead. They can purchase these courses at a discounted rate. So right now we have a total of six different partner universities and colleges that work with us, and we have a total of 39 courses through college and high school that 10th through 12th grade students can actually take advantage of, save a lot of money, get ahead, make room in their college semesters to do a semester, you know overseas or you know to take some other fun courses.
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: So that's always something that we want the students at registration time to know those options. And then this in March, we had the Builders Guild of Western Pennsylvania come in and the director addressed a bunch of students and parents, and they talked about the 16 joint apprenticeship training centers offering more than 30 programs by the construction, trade unions and contractor associations throughout western Pennsylvania. And so, again, we're looking at all these different options, Jeff. So we like to address, you know, every type of option a kid would be thinking about whether it be the military, two year school, the career tech school, the four year school and directly into the workforce. So we sort of every year those speaker series, they look a little different. But that was this year's agenda.
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Jeff Krakoff: Yeah. So one of the ones you mentioned was apprenticeships in the trades. But I know there's, you know, co-op programs. There's, you know, what are some of the training opportunities to get real world experience in a lot of different areas, whether it's mentoring, you know, work related and co-op what's available to students.
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: Yeah, we are always on the lookout to add opportunities. And that's something that, um, I worked hard on this year to just visit workplaces and start making these partnerships with our local workforce. But a couple different experiences that I can mention. The first is we work with PNC Bank. They have a partner up program and it's for seniors. So at the beginning of each year and this is our second year, just for this beginning of this school year, we identify students that may be looking at going directly into the workforce or maybe not sure at the beginning of their senior year. So they are part of a career readiness program and it's led by PNC. It consists of seven two hour sessions each month starting in September, and the goal is to prepare these students for looking at their strengths, assisting them with resume building interview skills. We have a bunch of professionals from this coalition come in and they read the students resumes. They do mock interviews with them and they really try to prepare these students and develop them professionally and personally and get them ready. And then in May, I'm actually taking a bunch of those students to a real interview in a place downtown. We're going to go down through PNC and they're going to actually interview for one with one of these companies. So we're really excited about that.
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: And then another mentoring. You mentioned mentoring. And we, um, we partner with Robert Morris University and we actually have two different career areas. We have a health care and then we have education and what we do once a month, Robert Morris University brings professionals out in the real world for the health care. And every month it's a different health care topic professional, but then we also have real students. For instance, they might have psychiatric nurses come in and they, you know, talk about nursing and different types of nursing. And then they have the students in the nursing program talk about their college or their experience while they're working through the program. So we have that again for health care once a month. And then it culminates to a final mentor field trip, and the same thing with education. So those are two mentoring programs. They're virtual sessions, but we have a room that we we have the kids nine through 12 come in. They could actually sign up for each one of those and they could ask the questions. They have a vibrant question and answer session at the end of those that I think are very, very helpful for the students to get their questions answered.
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Jeff Krakoff: And you may not have the numbers on this, but just from your perspective, whether, you know, comparing a ninth grader to a 12th grader. What percentage has a very specific idea. This is what I want to do versus it could be one of 2 or 3 things or I have no idea. You know, can you talk about the progression maybe from ninth to 12th grade of what you're seeing there.
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: I think that. You know, and it's a school counselors and working on the secondary campus. We don't want students to shut their doors. We don't want them to just say, you know, yes, if I could give a percentage, I'd say 30% might know. But again, we want kids to keep open minded because when you say that you want to commit to this particular field or this particular job or this particular career, you're saying no to the many jobs that not even created yet. So we want these kids to have an open mind and teach teaching them skills to learn the career acquisition process. You know, going back to these domains, as long as you always are looking to find out more about yourself, you know, what your strengths are and applying those skills. And you have a knack for learning you could do any job or career that you want when you put your mind to it. We want kids to have an open mind.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay, So imagine a great place for that would be a college and career fair and the job fair. And I understand you have one coming up. When will that be and what's it all about?
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: Sure. Um, the college and career school fair is next month on April 18th. It's in the senior high school gymnasium. We have approximately 80 post-secondary institutions representing, you know, universities, colleges, community college, career technical institutes, the military. We have all 10th grader, 10th grade students and all 11th grade students come through. So whether it's, you know, a certain period that they're assigned to, but all the 10th graders, 11th graders will come through. So that's about 1200 kids will walk through that college and career school fair. And then any interested seniors, if seniors, you know, haven't made decisions yet and they want to walk through, they can walk through as well, you know, that's going to be open for them. So it is a very big event. We get everyone involved at Seneca. Yeah, the parking, the security, it's yeah, it's quite it's quite a big event. That's probably the biggest event that I coordinate. But then the next month, May 4th is the job fair and that's also in the senior high gymnasium and the focus is on graduating seniors looking for full time employment and or internships. However, interested juniors looking for full time and excuse me, looking for summer work, um should also attend. So it's open to juniors and seniors. I have about 30 attending companies, local companies coming in that offer. We look for companies that offer that career growth where one can advance through the company and have some form of benefits and or tuition assistance. So even students thinking about they want to go to Butler County Community College, part time, live at home, but they also want that job, that career company that they could grow with as well and maybe help pay for their education. Those are pretty, pretty nice perks. So we have that coming up on May the 4th.
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Jeff Krakoff: Well, we just talked about so many things that are available right through your department. If I'm a student or a parent, where can I go to learn more about Seneca Valley's college and career resources?
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: Absolutely. Our two biggest sources of information, Jeff, would happen to be our senior high guidance website. The second biggest source of information is on a monthly basis. At the beginning of each month, we send out a newsletter. It's called the Guidance News and Notes and some something that might not be publicized on the website since the beginning of the school year would pop up on those monthly guidance, news and notes, for instance, and something that I have not mentioned yet. We have a series of career tracks and basically those are field trips to certain companies or educational institutions. And it's funny because I just ran in here today. We just got back from (MSA) mine safety appliances. And it is such a good experience for the students to leave Seneca and under, you know, be exposed to a company, their company culture and really gets educated on a day in the life of what it would be like working for that company. And I know that we've done several this school year and, you know, several some could be companies and manufacturing, some of them could be that post-secondary institution, some could be. We went to a build a fair construction trade fair down in Pittsburgh this past November. We visited the steam fitters, the technology and training center in December. So again, exposing kids to all these different options, but they're called career tracks. And I really feel that that to me is one of my favorite experiences that I feel that we are expanding and growing on because we want to build those partnerships with those companies and we want to bring the world into Seneca Valley, but we want to take Seneca Valley out to the world.
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Jeff Krakoff: So yeah, both are important. So is there anything else you'd like to share with us that maybe we didn't touch upon?
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: Sure. Yeah, I know that schools, you know, it's our goal. We need to be responsive to those labor market projections and workforce needs, and we as counselors guide the students to explore those many different employment pathways. One that is right for them because every student is unique. Again, we mentioned these options, whether that means college or career technical schools, military or directly to the workforce. The goal is that every student have a plan and direction upon leaving high school. I have a hashtag on our Instagram that is hashtag Beyond the Walls of SV, which means it is our goal at Seneca Valley to prepare all students for those next steps.
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Jeff Krakoff: And the department in the district is doing a great job at that. So thank you for all your hard work. This was Darla Ramirez-Lightner, coordinator of collegiate and career affairs at Seneca Valley. Thanks for your time today.
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Darla Ramirez-Lightner: Not a problem. Thank you, Jeff. It's been a pleasure.