Next Gen Workforce

How does a small, rural district make sure 100% of its students leave with real career exposure? In this episode of the Next Gen Workforce Podcast, Michael and Andy sit down with Amy “Bozz” Bossard, facilitator of Boone EDGE at Boone Community Schools in Iowa.

Bozz is president of the Iowa Work-Based Learning Board and serves on ACTE’s Work-Based Learning Leadership Alliance and Work-Based Learning Policy Committee. She shares how Boone built a career exposure continuum that starts in kindergarten and grows into a record 35 senior internships. Some of those interns go on to full-ride scholarships sponsored by their employer partners.

In this episode:

• Building a K–12 career exposure continuum, from kindergarten field trips to eighth graders applying for their first jobs
• How Boone decides which students are ready for internships, and what everyone else gets instead
• Finding and keeping employer partners when you’re the only program like it for 45 miles
• Bringing real community projects into the classroom, from a winter market to a barbershop redesign
• The reverse career fair, and other low-lift ways for schools to get employers involved
• What a work-based learning coordinator’s week actually looks like
• The national work-based learning policy issues Bozz is watching

Whether you’re a CTE director, a work-based learning coordinator, a counselor or a teacher running a program on a stipend, this conversation is full of ideas you can put to work right away.

The Next Gen Workforce Podcast is brought to you by Starteryou, the infrastructure for K–12 work-based learning. Learn more at https://starteryou.com

Welcome to Next Gen Workforce, hosted by Michael Berlingo, CEO of Starteryou, with co-host Andy Schneider, Starteryou’s COO. Michael and Andy met in college and went on to build Starteryou together. Career readiness is one of the biggest priorities in education right now, and every school is figuring it out as they go. Each episode, we sit down with superintendents, CTE directors, work-based learning coordinators, and employers to talk about what’s actually working, what isn’t, and what’s next. Hit follow so you don’t miss the first episode.