ACP GENERAL INFORMATION
What is an Academic & Career Plan? (ACP)
An Academic & Career Plan is a personalized plan to help guide a student’s middle/high school learning experiences to support the goals a student sets for him/herself.
What’s included in an Academic & Career Plan?
A student’s ACP includes his/her unique:
- Course Plan: Course Selections, grades 7 – 12
- Co-Curricular Activities (Clubs, Athletics, Arts)
- Career/Work Based Learning Experiences (Jobs, Co-ops, Internships, Youth Apprenticeships)
- Service Learning Experiences (Community Service, Volunteer Efforts)
- Assessment Results (WKCE, Aspire, PSAT, ACT, WorkKeys, AP)
- Career Clusters and Career Pathways of Interest
- Credentials
- Learning Styles
- Personality Traits
- Work Values & Work Skills
- Potential post-high school education options (tech school 2-year college, 4-year college, specialty school, apprenticeship, work, military)
How does planning help a student?
Planning:
- Teaches a student to develop and implement a plan for goal attainment – a critical life skill
- Exposes students to a variety of opportunities for consideration
- Helps inform a student’s investment in post high-school education
- Helps students understand how to plan when they decide to make changes
How is Academic & Career Plan related to College & Career Readiness?
Developing an ACP ensures that a student is ready for college and career.
College Ready: Effectively able to navigate the world of higher education. It means a student:
- Is beyond “college-content” ready
- Is able to effectively evaluate post-secondary options
- Understands expectations for completing a post-secondary credential with value in the projected economy.
Career Ready: Effectively able to navigate the world of work (employability). It means a student:
- Has identified the skills and interests they would like to leverage in a career
- Has a general understanding of the industries they could work in someday
- Understands how to identify the value of specific careers in projected economy
- Is able to apply what they have learned in a service/work setting
- Is able to effectively evaluate potential work environments
- Understands expectations to find and sustain employment
To be both college and career ready – a student requires:
- Demonstrated academic knowledge and skills (gained from core and elective coursework)
- Life Skills: Productive self-concept, ability to advocate, perseverance
- Demonstrated self-management
- Effective organizational and social behavior
Are other school districts having their students create an Academic & Career Plan?
The Academic & Career Plan is a state wide initiative related to college and career readiness, but each district maintains local control over their Academic & Career Planning program for students. The School District of New Berlin has implemented the process ahead of the state mandate (2017) because it believes, for reasons listed above, that planning is best for all students.
When does a student begin developing his/her Academic & Career Plan?
A student begins developing a plan in 6th grade when he/she makes course selections.
View activities that for students in each grade level related to Academic & Career Planning.
What about learning for learning’s sake? Does my child have to have a career plan in middle and high school?
An Academic & Career Plan does not require a student to declare any career path in middle/high school. Students should use the planning process to select learning opportunities that will help them decide what they like and don’t like. Some students will, however, have a path they’ve identified and they will be able to directly align their learning to that path. Other students will use the planning process to explore.
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