Adrian Superintendent Nate Parker presents college and career plan to school board

ADRIAN — Adrian Superintendent Nate Parker introduced and detailed the specifics of the district’s College and Career Work Group plan during Monday’s board of education meeting.

The multistep plan aims to serve as a student’s roadmap throughout their years of schooling, which introduces them to the post-secondary educational options available to them. The plan would be introduced to students as early as kindergarten and will continue to be monitored and updated as students progress through each grade level.

The objective of the plan, Parker said, is to show students the many pathways available to them once they graduate from high school.

College enrollment, heading into the workforce, entering into a trade school or enlisting in the armed forces are pathways Parker said students should be aware of and strive toward.

The community would also have a hand in the promotion of what’s available to students after their years of general education, Parker said.

“The engagement piece of this plan is really so that our students understand why they are at school,” Parker said. “There’s an end goal to their education here and we need to make sure they understand that.”

The various steps of the plan, which are at least 10 in total, are useful tools that Parker said can help “take the mystery” out of a student’s future after their years of schooling at Adrian.

While much of the plan focuses on a student’s education and course-specific offerings in high school, Parker said it is equally important for the district to promote educational and post-secondary goals to students in kindergarten through eighth grade, too. Personal success goals and building blocks for continual learning after high school would be administered to each student.

Graduation coaches and parent representatives would be integral partners in making sure students are regularly communicated with and updated regarding their career goals and personal success plans. Informing district parents on what’s available to their students is also a large part of the plan, Parker said.

At least 10-15 people have attended meetings and are participating in the initial stages of the plan, he said. Coordinating and partnering with Adrian College, Jackson College, Siena Heights University, local businesses and companies, and Lenawee Now are all avenues the district can take to show students some of the available options to them after high school.

“To get this plan to where we want it to be, we know that we need to meet one-on-one with students and their parents,” Parker said.

The College and Career Work Group plan is one of several initiatives Parker has started to promote at Adrian schools since becoming the district’s superintendent in March. Another educational plan, the Literacy Plan’s “Just Read” program, was promoted by the district at this year's Lenawee County Fair.

In May, Parker discussed with the board of education the workings of his ASPIRE plan, which stands for Adrian Schools Project Inspire, Resiliency and Excellence. The initiative was something Parker discussed in detail when he interviewed for the superintendency in January.

In a nutshell, the goal of the ASPIRE initiative is for students as early as kindergarten to understand the importance of education and “aspire” throughout their educational journey to receive their diploma because they “understand the importance of what it means,” he said at the time of his interviews. The end goal of ASPIRE is to make sure Adrian Public Schools provides rigorous and positive learning environments where students want to learn and teachers want to teach.

During the superintendent interviews, Parker also unveiled the details of his “Learn and Lead” plan, something he has already executed this spring and summer by conducting community forum nights both in person and virtually that offered an opportunity to talk with parents, students, educators and community members about the positive and negative things happening at Adrian Public Schools.

The Maple Diploma Plus program, another initiative introduced by Parker earlier this year, aims to make sure students graduating from Adrian Public Schools have the ability to not only graduate with an Adrian Public Schools diploma but also college-readiness certification or the ability to jump right into the workforce.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: College and Career plan highlighted by Adrian Superintendent Parker