Author Spotlight
Kate Heitmann
The Renovation Sensation was held on Oct. 22 after not hosting the event last year due to COVID-19 and East students give their take on schools requiring vaccinations. Real World Learning Counselor Jodee Merriman fills a new role at East to help students find their path and plan for after high school graduation.
“I’m brand new here and this is a brand new position — everything’s new. My job as [the] Real World Learning counselor is twofold. It’s to help kids either be ready for college when they graduate from the four walls of East or be ready to go out into the workforce. It’s based on college readiness or career technical education.”
“Real World Learning is a partnership between Shawnee Mission School District and the Kauffman Foundation. The job is to make sure that students are either going to be ready for college, or they’re going to be ready to go into the workforce with what we call IRCS, or Industry Recognized Credentials, or they’re going to be able to have skills or trades certifications that they can go and be employable once they graduate from high school.”
“We’re still kind of learning as this is a brand new program, so it’s got a lot of different facets to it. There are partnerships that we’re building in the community with business partners. [The] business partner opportunities entail finding businesses who are willing to provide internships or job shadowing opportunities for our students. We have a partnership with [the Johnson County Community College]. Beginning next fall, students will be able to take full-time classes out there and earn what we call concurrent credit. So they’re able to get credit while they’re in high school to finish their high school requirements, and also get credit while they’re in college. They’ll have a leg up when they go on to any four-year institution, because that’ll transfer with them.
Then I also work with the students to say, ‘What is it that you want to do? How can I help you with the job shadowing opportunities or internship opportunities? How can I go and find an opportunity that a student might be interested in that we don’t have a business partner set up with yet?’ I’m also a liaison between Johnson County and the career and technical and the CAA.”
“My [goal] is to make sure that I can do everything I can to help students along the way, whether that’s navigating ‘what my next step is in life,’ to navigating a potential career path. My heart is here for the kids. My goal is to make sure that when we’re looking at things like our Individual Plans of Study that there is a thorough understanding of what our options are. Not every student is going to take the same career path. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t all be successful in the way that best fits them.”
“We moved [the Lancer Job Board] from a paper format to digital format. Basically, businesses reach out to us and say, ‘hey, I have an offer, I’m looking for somebody who can work flexible hours in the afternoon or the evening, I’d like high school student, these are the job opportunities that we have, can you help fill it.’ I post it on there and then distribute it out to students, so they’re able to see what’s available. And every student has access because it’s right there on their device.
We’re always adding business partners and client connected project opportunities. Just because they may not have something you’re interested in right now doesn’t mean that that’s not going to change in a week.”
“The other [academic] counselors are going to be focused on academics, and whether or not you’re meeting your graduation requirements. My job isn’t necessarily to be an academic counselor, but more of how do we make sure that when students graduate, they’ve got job opportunities and job experience. My job really is focused on that Real World learning part of it, to tie the education and knowledge base with the hands on learning aspect, to make sure that it applies and the dots are connected.”
“I hope students this year can really find that there are options available or find out what those options are and be able to take full advantage of them. And if they want something that isn’t readily available, that they know that I’ll be able to do my best to find an opportunity for them.”
“There’s lots of opportunities out there, and I’d love to be able to know what students really want, and I can have an idea what a student might want, but [it] may not be exactly what they’re looking for. It’s O.K. to not have it figured out. I want students to know that. That’s why we’re here, to work through that process. I think there’s a lot of pressure on students to feel like they have to have everything figured out when you’re 16. So don’t be afraid, come and see me. I love to work with students.”
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