Programs of Study

Arizona RPOS project work focused on two pathways within the Education Career Cluster: Education Professions and Early Childhood Education (ECE). These pathways help prepare students to enter advanced education and enter careers in early childhood and elementary education (i.e., pre-K to grade 8), secondary education, and related fields. In spring 2013, the state hired a dedicated staff member, John Balentine, to oversee grant activities and serve as the RPOS grant manager. The addition of the position allowed Jan Brite, the RPOS director, to reduce her grant involvement to the level envisioned in the state’s original proposal.

Project activities advanced in the urban site, Peoria Unified School District/Glendale Community College. The partnership got off to a slow start due to college redistricting which forced the original college partner to withdraw. Staff turnover at the high school also led to the involvement of new teachers who lacked the necessary instructional certifications. The district provided intensive training to help them achieve the necessary accreditation. Although the Tuba City/Coconino partnership did not take part in the 2013–14 site visits, state staff described the site as having evidenced the most successful implementation of the RPOS grant, with consistent implementation of Framework components at both education levels and strong support between the two. The suburban partnership between Lake Havasu and Mohave Community College faced significant challenges. State RPOS leads suggested that staff and administrative changes complicated pathway development. Relations between the high school and college were also affected by the location of the ECE program at the high school and by staffing limitations, since a single teacher was responsible for delivering instruction at both education levels.

State-level staff related that the RPOS grant strengthened the content and delivery of Arizona’s ECE and Education Professions pathways by increasing the consistency of instruction across sites and by attracting positive attention within the state. The development of a statewide Program of Study Development and Implementation Guide was viewed by state staff as one of the most significant accomplishments of the project. The guide helps local staff assess each RPOS component and reflect on their implementation progress. While the state continues to face challenges in obtaining accurate and timely information from postsecondary partners, the quality of state data has improved over time as the project team built relationships and trust with staff at participating sites.

For more information, visit Arizona's RPOS website.

In Kansas, the RPOS project worked with the Manufacturing Production Pathway within the Manufacturing Career Cluster. Four secondary school districts (Nemaha Valley School District, located in a rural area; Emporia School District, located in a large rural area; Derby Public Schools, located in a suburban area; and Wichita Public Schools, located in an urban area) and six postsecondary institutions (Butler Community College, Flint Hills Technical College, Hutchinson Community College, Manhattan Area Technical College, Wichita Area Technical College, and Fort Hays State University) participated in project activities.

The 2013–14 work of the RPOS team in Kansas emphasized career advising and counseling, reflecting both the team’s growing recognition of the importance of this POS component and the Kansas Board of Education’s recent recommendation for all 7th and 8th graders to complete plans of study. The project provided counselors and some teachers in the RPOS districts with new CTE-related career development resources as well as job shadowing and externship opportunities. Ongoing project activities in other areas included math-in-manufacturing professional development activities for high school and college instructors, as well as workshops on recent advances in the manufacturing field. The largest participating district worked with several other districts in the area to establish a regional manufacturing council for technical education.

For more information, visit Kansas' RPOS website.

Maryland used the RPOS grant resources to develop an Automotive Technology Rigorous Program of Study (AT-RPOS) pathway within the broader Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics Career Cluster that provides students with industry-recognized skills and certifications that prepare them for both college and careers. The initiative’s rural (Queen Anne’s County), suburban (Baltimore County) and urban (Baltimore City) secondary sites all worked with two postsecondary partners, the Community College of Baltimore County and the Pennsylvania College of Technology.

State work produced a standardized model curriculum that is aligned with state academic and industry standards, provides for the award of statewide articulated college-level credit, and prepares students to take industry-recognized certifications. During the 2013–14 project year, the state used RPOS grant resources to create marketing tools that publicize pathway benefits. It also invested in training to assist instructors in using the new curriculum and guidance counselors in communicating pathway options to students. In response to concerns raised by federal staff about the relatively narrow occupational focus of the AT-RPOS, the state commissioned a study in the second project year to explore the potential for introducing a more generalized TDL pathway. Based on the report's recommendations, the state began work in 2012–13 to create a new pathway encompassing a range of careers in the transportation and materials-moving industry. During 2013–14, the state designed a foundational course that will be piloted in the coming year. An advisory group was formed to develop strategies to support further pathway development.

For more information, visit Maryland's RPOS website.

The RPOS project in Montana enhanced the ten POS components in the Construction Pathway in the Architecture and Construction Career Cluster. Project activities included four LEAs: Billings Public School (urban), Great Falls Public Schools and Helena Public Schools (suburban), and Townsend School District (rural) and one primary postsecondary partner, the University of Montana, Helena College of Technology. The districts in Billings and Great Falls, however, also partnered with area postsecondary institutions to establish credit transfer opportunities.

The Montana RPOS team had a consistent focus on teacher professional development, particularly in technical skill assessments and the integration of rigorous technical and academic content in both CTE and academic courses. CTE instructors in the participating high schools had participated in Math- and Literacy-in-CTE training and had worked with their academic department colleagues to develop new units and curricula. The project team worked with the Montana Association for CTE to offer the same training to an additional 300 instructors across the state. In the 2013–14 academic year, the project team piloted the construction program technical skill assessment developed by NOCTI. The project leads developed three-year articulation agreements that will enable high school students to receive college credits based on their performance on the NOCTI assessment. Opportunities for secondary students to earn college credits are limited in Montana, and the project team feels that these agreements, which mark the first time that articulation-through-assessment has been tried in the state, may offer a viable strategy for expanding secondary-postsecondary credit transfer agreements in CTE.

For more information, visit Montana's RPOS website.

Utah's RPOS initiative focused on health sciences and included four state-approved pathways: Biotech Research and Development, Diagnostics, Health Informatics, and Therapeutic Services. Three local project sites, composed of secondary and postsecondary partners, implemented projects designed to address local education and workforce priorities: Salt Lake City School District (urban) and Salt Lake Community College, Weber School District (suburban) and Weber State University (WSU), and San Juan School District (rural) and Utah State University, College of Eastern Utah—San Juan.

In 2013, the Utah State Office of Education offered a professional development workshop for instructors that provided resources to promote hands-on classroom activities and incorporate the acquisition of literacy skills into CTE course curricula. The Salt Lake site offered a week-long summer program for counselors and teachers that included campus visits, classroom observations, job shadowing, and tours of local healthcare employers and hospitals. In the last year, Weber and WSU doubled the number of students enrolled in the program to 50 by expanding to a second high school in the district. The San Juan partnership had a slower start than the other two sites but in the last two years began offering two sections of the pathways course to address increasing interest from students. The state leadership team pursued opportunities to transfer the RPOS experience to new projects by leveraging other grant and funding opportunities.

For more information, visit Utah's RPOS website.

State and local partners established the Wisconsin Advanced Manufacturing Pathway Education Network (WAMPEN) to ensure that the skills taught through the RPOS curriculum meet the needs of Central Wisconsin manufacturers. The WAMPEN RPOS team included the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the Wisconsin Technical College System, Northcentral Technical College (NTC), and three school districts in NTC’s service area: Wausau School District (urban), D.C. Everest Area School District (suburban), and the School District of Spencer (rural).

Activities in the last year included ongoing professional development, particularly in support of integrating mathematics and literacy into CTE courses to improve course and student outcomes. The team also implemented the WI-Skills application, which allows classroom teachers to assess and track students’ demonstrations of technical skills in real time. WAMPEN offered its third Summer Institute in 2014, which focused on integrating mathematics into Advanced Manufacturing Pathway courses, and administrators from all 24 NTC districts were invited to participate and learn more about introducing RPOS into their CTE programs.

For more information, visit Wisconsin's RPOS website.