This partnership supports school and district leaders in northeastern Tennessee and leaders from their regional technical assistance provider, the Niswonger Foundation, to better understand the effectiveness of their existing college and career preparation programs so they can make informed decisions about how to improve students’ college and career readiness. REL Appalachia staff are helping partners address these needs through a series of projects focused on monitoring program implementation and assessing students’ college and career preparation and postsecondary outcomes, including employability skills. These activities will contribute to the short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes described in the partnership logic model below.
Partner districts: Carter County School District, Elizabethton City School District, Greene County School District, Greeneville City School District, Hamblen County School District, Hancock County School District, Kingsport City Schools, Sullivan County School District, Washington County School District
Current projects
In response to local needs identified by both educators and employers in northeastern Tennessee, REL Appalachia is engaging district and school leaders to enhance their understanding of research-based strategies that build students' employability skills for career success. This training project is intended to help leaders serve young people in varied career pathways, from those considering college to those intending to enter the military or workforce after high school graduation.
CareerConnect is a program that provides students with the opportunity to explore career paths, develop essential employability skills, earn workforce readiness credentials, and gain real-world work experience. REL staff are conducting a randomized controlled trial to study the impact of CareerConnect on student outcomes, including students’ perceptions of their employability skills, ACT WorkKeys scores, career and technical education course completion and concentrator status, and earning an industry credential. REL staff will also use a mixed-methods research design to assess implementation across the 23 high schools in the study, assess the associations between levels of implementation and impact, and conduct a cost analysis of CareerConnect.
Completed projects
During the first phase of this TCTS project, REL staff support district and Niswonger Foundation partners to develop and prioritize research questions and document data. Phase II will support Foundation partners to use available data to create user-friendly and replicable data reports to answer those questions identified in phase I. Phase II will also support district partners to properly interpret these data reports and use them to make decisions that impact student access to and success in relevant programs and interventions.