The State of Kansas doesn’t want high school graduates playing video games in their parent’s basement two years after they graduate. This, counselor Michelle Franze explained, is at the root of a new set of policies designed to set students up well for their post-grad endeavors and track their success. Franze said the policies are designed to insure that “we are not graduating students with no plan for the future.”
At the high school level, these policies have resulted in a raft of new requirements for the freshman class. Among others, they include a 0.5 communications credit, a 0.5 financial planning credit, and a full-credit STEM elective.
To help meet these requirements, Lawrence High School is offering a new course for freshmen called Career and Life Planning. The class is designed to help students successfully navigate their high school careers.
“It kind of demystifies some of those things that we think everybody understands when they come into high school,” teacher Barbara Tholen explained.
In her class, the students have been taught the fight song, the alma mater, and football cheers. They’ve also covered more important topics, like how to access mental health resources, the office of student services, the food pantry, and how to log community service hours.
“We have so many great resources at our school and we’re not always good about sharing them,” Tholen said.
The class has met with fall sports athletes, thespians, debate members and journalism students. Tholen believes exposure to Lawrence High’s extracurriculars can help students get involved sooner rather than later.
“I think the earlier you get connected into something in high school, I think the less scary it is,” she said. “All of those classes are really pathways to having a group of people that you could connect with later in high school.”
Despite the successes in Tholen’s classroom, the course is still a work in progress.
“We are trying to build this class as we are teaching it,” Tholen said. “I’ve taken a lot of creative liberties with expectations.”
Franze explained that the class’s goal is to help students curate their Individual Plan of Study, or IPS. This objective comes from the state, in order to ensure that students pursue either work, school, or the military after high school.
“We want to know that students have a plan to do one of these things and that they will be able to support themselves and contribute to society in the future,” Franze said.
Freshman Mila Morrison said she’s learned a lot already. “Being in Career and Life planning made me realize how important trying new things and getting involved is,” she said. ”Since then I’ve run for student council and joined a golf team, something I knew absolutely nothing about, and I’m grateful for each of those experiences.”
