Career Connections of Western Nebraska

Jamie Bright Author

10/01/2024 Added

3 Plays

Description

Jordan Diedrich gives an overview of Career Connections of Western Nebraska and then Craig Schroeder dives into the survey results from our Career Connections survey of students about career interests and future plans. Learn what students in the Panhandle are interested in and how we can keep them in the area after they graduate! Recorded 10/11/2023.

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[00:00:00.000]Thank you.
[00:00:29.980]Soundcheck, how's everybody doing today?
[00:00:56.340]Hey, Sean, great to see you.
[00:00:59.960]How are you?
[00:01:00.540]Good.
[00:01:01.380]You're coming through great, Greg.
[00:01:03.000]Man, look at all those awards on your wall.
[00:01:06.080]It's messiness back there.
[00:01:09.540]Maybe I should blur my screen so you can't see all my messiness.
[00:01:14.220]So are you still in Kearney?
[00:01:22.400]I live in Kearney.
[00:01:24.640]This office is in Broken Bow, Nebraska, where I sit.
[00:01:28.040]So, yeah.
[00:01:29.940]So you make that commute each day or?
[00:01:33.120]Two, three days a week.
[00:01:34.900]So, yeah.
[00:01:37.100]Yeah, it's a ways up here for sure.
[00:01:41.200]Go ahead.
[00:01:45.800]I was talking to the director of the Custer County Museum and she said up there they've got an elk that's been part of a cattle herd in a pasture for I don't know how many years now.
[00:01:57.240]Came in as a yearling, thinks it's a cow.
[00:02:00.220]But now it's like huge and has like a five foot rack, five foot tall.
[00:02:04.660]And it lays along the road there and you come down and see it.
[00:02:08.260]So she invited me up there sometime to take me out and see a few things around the Solomon Butcher photographs.
[00:02:13.900]I'm kind of interested in that history a little bit.
[00:02:17.000]So anyway, I don't know if you run into anything like that.
[00:02:20.600]I know there's more elk coming in.
[00:02:22.060]Yes, I've heard stories about this elk that thinks it's a cow.
[00:02:26.580]So, yeah, I haven't seen.
[00:02:29.900]I haven't seen it myself, but I have.
[00:02:31.520]I've heard the story, so.
[00:02:33.360]So it's true.
[00:02:35.400]It is true.
[00:02:38.240]It exists.
[00:02:39.540]Hi, Jordan.
[00:02:44.040]How are you?
[00:02:44.640]There's Jordan.
[00:02:46.560]Jordan, you're the star of the day, right?
[00:02:48.180]Me and Craig.
[00:02:49.280]Craig's going to help me out.
[00:02:50.440]So, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's going good.
[00:02:54.280]Career Connections Program there in Western Nebraska, correct?
[00:02:58.400]Yep, that's right.
[00:03:00.520]What wonderful.
[00:03:01.380]Very excited to talk about it.
[00:03:04.140]So, Craig, I'm stuck at home with a sick daughter again.
[00:03:08.000]Oh.
[00:03:08.860]Yep.
[00:03:10.160]She threw up in the car on the way to school, so it never ends, ever, ever.
[00:03:17.000]In this post-COVID era, Jordan, you don't get to take a sick day.
[00:03:20.840]You're still working from home.
[00:03:21.980]Sorry.
[00:03:22.300]That's right.
[00:03:22.880]I know.
[00:03:23.520]That's exactly right.
[00:03:24.780]The good news is, is that pretty much every time I've been homesick or my daughter,
[00:03:29.900]with my daughter's sick, I have a bunch of zoom meetings so I can still work.
[00:03:34.200]So yeah.
[00:03:35.040]Yeah.
[00:03:37.300]I don't think the kids are going to like it if there's no more snow days and they have
[00:03:40.120]to zoom from school.
[00:03:41.060]That's true.
[00:03:43.340]That's so funny.
[00:03:44.500]That's probably what it's going to come to.
[00:03:46.320]It's easy enough now.
[00:03:49.000]So it is, well, we have one more minute.
[00:03:55.380]We'll definitely wait until 11 o'clock and then we can actually,
[00:03:59.840]we flip our little chatter recording before 11, which is okay.
[00:04:04.080]And then Danny can flip that later.
[00:04:06.680]Cause I think they post these on, I don't know if she shares the video.
[00:04:10.100]I don't think we really have a website, do we?
[00:04:11.720]For those that are regular attendees here of our other recordings.
[00:04:16.580]Yeah, probably a good idea to clip it.
[00:04:19.780]So I, have I told you my 50 cent snow day story?
[00:04:29.820]I haven't heard it.
[00:04:30.820]Fifth grade and before lunch and we had really tall windows and these big,
[00:04:35.720]huge snowflakes start just kind of waffling down.
[00:04:38.860]So I turned to my best friend and I said, I'll bet you 50 cents.
[00:04:41.320]We don't get out of school today for a snow day. He said, okay, I'll bet you.
[00:04:44.800]That was like the biggest blizzard we ever had in the early 1970s.
[00:04:49.140]We got out of school for the entire week. So I lost the bet,
[00:04:52.140]but it was the best 50 cents I ever spent.
[00:04:54.000]I love it. That's definitely worth that 50 cents.
[00:04:59.800]So I remember when I was a kid, I used to have like two, three,
[00:05:03.140]four days of snow days all the time, all the time.
[00:05:05.820]Cause we'd just get hammered with snow and in Colorado. But yeah,
[00:05:10.180]I don't know. It doesn't seem like it's like that anymore.
[00:05:12.300]What part of Colorado did you grow up in?
[00:05:14.340]I was in Aurora, Colorado when that happened. So near Denver,
[00:05:18.240]and then went to Colorado Springs area. But that was when I was in Aurora,
[00:05:21.740]we had multiple snow days constantly.
[00:05:24.520]Yeah. The front range there, it gets kind of crazy weather for sure.
[00:05:29.880]That's why they moved the airport away from Denver, of course, but.
[00:05:33.140]Oh yeah, definitely.
[00:05:36.260]See Southwest Nebraska is called the banana belt because the Chinook winds that
[00:05:41.360]come over the Rockies kind of dropped right in there, just in our area.
[00:05:44.700]And in wintertime, it's usually a little warmer there than the rest of the
[00:05:47.760]state. So a little secret Southwest Nebraska.
[00:05:51.460]Very interesting.
[00:05:53.000]I'm a cook. They call themselves the banana belt over there.
[00:05:59.760]Well, we have about seven of us of our group of my list show is 24 potential
[00:06:05.780]audiences. Oh, we got Chelsea just joined us.
[00:06:09.420]So we're up to eight. And for the sake of time, you guys,
[00:06:13.700]I would like to go ahead and get started if that's okay.
[00:06:16.920]So welcome everyone to a rural rendezvous.
[00:06:21.040]There are about eight of us.
[00:06:22.500]Today's guest speakers are Craig Schroeder and Jordan Dietrich.
[00:06:26.920]And they're going to tell us about an innovative program,
[00:06:29.740]a career connections that they're doing out there in the Panhandle.
[00:06:33.580]This is recorded and the recording will be shared later with the 24 others that are in the group that are not able to join us today.
[00:06:44.500]I am Sean Kasky.
[00:06:46.220]I'm an extension educator based out of Broken Bone, Nebraska, serving eight counties here,
[00:06:50.520]filling in for Jamie Bright, who serves the South Panhandle.
[00:06:55.440]Are there any questions for folks before we get started?
[00:06:59.720]No.
[00:07:00.120]Well, with that, Craig, Jordan, I'll let you guys tell a little more about yourselves and
[00:07:07.820]about your wonderful program.
[00:07:09.260]Thank you very much.
[00:07:10.080]Perfect.
[00:07:11.280]Thank you, Sean.
[00:07:11.960]I have the emergency alarm testing is going on right now.
[00:07:16.620]So if you hear a high-pitched noise, that's what it is.
[00:07:19.100]I'm going to go ahead and share my screen here.
[00:07:22.240]Get this presentation going.
[00:07:29.700]All right.
[00:07:33.740]Can you guys see that?
[00:07:34.520]Yep, looks great.
[00:07:37.680]Okay, perfect.
[00:07:38.680]So I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:07:40.640]I'm the executive director at Twin Cities Development in western Nebraska.
[00:07:45.000]We're a kind of a regional economic development organization in the western part of the state.
[00:07:53.620]So today I want to talk to you about Career Connections of Western Nebraska, which is a rural approach.
[00:07:59.680]to developing and sustaining career pathways.
[00:08:02.260]So we have a core team that kind of meets on a regular basis, almost weekly, that kind of really make things happen for Career Connections.
[00:08:14.660]So I just wanted to kind of give a shout out to some of those people.
[00:08:18.100]Sarah is with Snow Redfern Foundation.
[00:08:21.100]We have Kelsey with Panhandle Public Health District.
[00:08:24.000]Jamie Bright with University of Nebraska.
[00:08:26.920]Lori with ESU 13.
[00:08:29.660]Kelsey, who's on this call, with Box Butte Development Corporation.
[00:08:32.520]Anthony Girola, who's also from Twin Cities Development.
[00:08:35.520]Melissa from the University of Nebraska.
[00:08:37.880]And then Craig, who's on this call, with Heartland Center for Leadership Development.
[00:08:42.180]Although we have a core team, our group is so, so much more than that.
[00:08:49.780]We really are a big collaborative effort of organizations, people, schools, municipalities from all across western Nebraska.
[00:08:59.640]So we really are a group of people coming together to try to create a pipeline of our middle school and high school students to our local employers so that we can retain our talent and retain our youth in our area.
[00:09:16.040]So this kind of gives you a kind of shows you all the different industries that we're working with and that we're teaming up with.
[00:09:26.360]So we're partnering with people in the industry.
[00:09:29.620]Workforce development centers, economic development centers, human services, industry, which would be all the employers in the area, and then also private sector funders and stakeholders.
[00:09:40.840]So this kind of just gives you a little bit of an idea of some of the groups that we're partnering with.
[00:09:51.040]So we have a lot of different organizations that are working with us.
[00:09:55.100]We have actually added quite a few to this list since this powerhouse.
[00:09:59.600]PowerPoint has been made, but this just gives you an idea of how big Career Connections really is and the impact that we're going to have on the community and schools and businesses.
[00:10:09.340]So we're working with 23 school districts within the Panhandle and then working with a bunch of other organizations and businesses.
[00:10:18.000]So our Career Connections mission is to connect and expand educational and training opportunities to develop a skilled workforce for
[00:10:29.580]thriving Nebraska Panhandle. And our vision is to be the premier collaborative resource to connect the workforce to training
[00:10:36.320]opportunities for new or existing businesses throughout Western Nebraska.
[00:10:40.300]And so then we also have created a couple different committees that work on our one year action plan that we created probably about almost a year ago, really.
[00:10:51.400]So Career Connections has really been in the works for probably over three years now.
[00:11:00.100]Once COVID hit, it kind of slowed down and not much was done.
[00:11:03.880]But once COVID was starting to go away or people were starting to get back into the workplace about a year and a half ago,
[00:11:10.020]the group got together again and really started planning and getting the wheels turning and getting some things happening.
[00:11:17.660]So us being in rural Nebraska, we face a lot of challenges when it comes to workforce.
[00:11:25.300]Rural places all over the country face these same challenges.
[00:11:29.800]And so it's really, really important for us to collaborate and come together so that we can meet the needs of both job seekers and employers to be able to create these pipelines and retain our students.
[00:11:44.000]So for 2023 to 2024, our Career Connections group has come up with a list of three different activities that we are going to work on.
[00:11:55.700]Those three activities are the Teen Opportunity Surveys.
[00:11:59.520]The Career Cabs and then the Employer Internship Support.
[00:12:03.420]So I'll start with the Teen Opportunity Surveys.
[00:12:07.820]So we are going to do Teen Opportunity Surveys in the 23 school districts of the Nebraska Panhandle.
[00:12:16.120]And so we'll do those surveys for 6th graders through 12th graders.
[00:12:20.440]And the purpose of these surveys is to assess teen perspectives, motivators, and then also future and career preferences.
[00:12:29.500]So some of the things that the survey asks are, what industries are you interested in?
[00:12:36.460]So we can really get an idea of what jobs these students want to have in the future.
[00:12:40.900]It also asks about, are you involved in community planning?
[00:12:45.620]Are your community leaders looking at you and asking you questions and wondering what you want to see in the community in the future?
[00:12:53.020]And then also, do you want to stay rural or are you planning to leave once you graduate?
[00:12:59.480]So there's a lot of really good questions that are asked through this survey that we'll find the answers to.
[00:13:05.720]And then the deliverables are a summary report. So we'll get both data and an overall summary of the teen surveys.
[00:13:13.420]The cool thing that Craig is able to do is he can break down that data so we can get the information for just a certain county, for just a certain school district, for the entire area.
[00:13:23.580]So we can really break down that information and dig into it. And then we'll also get a presentation.
[00:13:29.460]We'll have the report findings similar to today, but we'll actually have like a final presentation from Craig probably sometime this month.
[00:13:36.800]And then also all of this data will be shared with the schools, the businesses, the organizations, the municipalities, anybody in the area that is interested in seeing this data, we will provide that to them.
[00:13:49.300]So we've actually been working on the teen opportunity surveys for about the last two months.
[00:13:55.300]And so I am going to actually turn it over to Craig.
[00:13:59.440]And he is going to give us an update on the teen surveys and how they're going and some of that data that we've been collecting.
[00:14:06.140]Great. Thank you, Jordan.
[00:14:08.580]So if you can unshare your screen, I'll go ahead and bring up the live survey here.
[00:14:13.240]And this is you guys are going to be like the first to get to see this almost finished data.
[00:14:19.140]We've got 22 of our 23 schools now that participated.
[00:14:23.320]So you can see the bar chart now, can't you, on the screen?
[00:14:26.960]Yes.
[00:14:29.420]We can see it, Craig.
[00:14:30.120]You can kind of see the representation there across the region, but here's the numbers here.
[00:14:35.120]So as of this morning, we have 3,737 participants.
[00:14:40.460]We're still waiting on Gordon Rushville, which will wrap theirs up this week.
[00:14:45.280]And we're hoping South Platte will participate, but otherwise we've got really pretty good distribution across the region and also by grade level.
[00:14:54.700]So we asked for those schools that have middle school, high school structure to include their sixth graders.
[00:14:59.400]And the 10th grade is especially important to us because we're going to do the career cabs that Jordan mentioned with that grade coming up here in November.
[00:15:10.200]So we want to pay attention to what their career pathway interests are in particular.
[00:15:16.000]I won't go through the towns or zip codes, of course.
[00:15:19.580]So one thing we asked the students to identify is how they view their community as a place to live as a teenager.
[00:15:29.380]And I'm going to, as we go through this, kind of point out where we do have a significant variation between the smaller schools and the larger schools.
[00:15:38.860]And of course, you know, the larger schools would be Scottsglobe, Gearing, Shadron, Alliance, and Sydney.
[00:15:45.140]So those five schools.
[00:15:46.520]And so I break that out and we have about 32% of smaller schools and the remainder made up of the larger schools.
[00:15:54.580]So we really want to pull the data out for the smaller schools so it doesn't get lost in the larger.
[00:15:59.360]Overall data.
[00:16:00.000]So I'm going to call it out for you where we see it here.
[00:16:02.240]Okay.
[00:16:02.740]So one of these is in this question about rating your community the place to live as teens.
[00:16:08.300]You can see overall in the four or five Likert scale.
[00:16:12.460]So above average to excellent.
[00:16:13.860]So you're seeing that right here, the 24, 72 and 11.
[00:16:16.880]So I put those together.
[00:16:18.320]That's 36%.
[00:16:19.360]But in our smaller schools, it actually jumps up a little bit to 40%.
[00:16:23.520]That they view their community as a good place to live and a little bit lower at 34% in the lower schools.
[00:16:29.340]And in the larger schools.
[00:16:30.120]So that's something we often see.
[00:16:32.720]We've done these surveys now with about 60,000 youth across rural America.
[00:16:36.180]And that's not uncommon for us to see that young people coming from smaller communities, smaller schools, sometimes rank their community as a better place to live.
[00:16:44.760]Okay?
[00:16:45.420]We also ask them if they've participated in some form of community volunteering activity.
[00:16:51.440]Give them a couple examples here.
[00:16:53.000]Overall, it's about 23%.
[00:16:55.340]Jumps up a little bit in the smaller schools to 26%.
[00:16:59.320]So that's encouraging for the small schools.
[00:17:02.700]We ask them what changes they would like to see to make their community a better place to live.
[00:17:08.580]These are four things we hear often from young people.
[00:17:12.140]So we want to just have them rank those four items there.
[00:17:15.720]And you can see that the overall results, the highest one at 34% was more entertainment and recreation options,
[00:17:22.360]followed by more local shopping and restaurants, more local jobs, and then more opportunities to be involved in community work.
[00:17:29.300]Community events and projects.
[00:17:30.500]Now, that one comes in fourth, but you're going to see some data later that's really encouraging about how young people would like to volunteer more in their community.
[00:17:39.180]We also asked them what their plans are after high school graduation.
[00:17:43.000]Now, a couple trends here.
[00:17:44.760]First of all, overall, the results there, you can see, if we add those up there, it's going to be somewhere around 65% or so.
[00:17:52.880]So, four-year college, two-year college, and technical school.
[00:17:55.580]I think it jumps up a little bit to 68%.
[00:17:59.280]Among the students from the smaller school districts.
[00:18:02.260]But, this is a trend we're seeing everywhere as I do these surveys in southeast Nebraska and southern Colorado and elsewhere recently.
[00:18:10.320]The four-year college number is dropping on us.
[00:18:14.040]So, and as well as the overall college attainment interest after high school.
[00:18:20.020]It's, like I said, it's 68% in the small schools, 64% in the larger five-school districts.
[00:18:25.920]But, historically, in Nebraska, that number has been in the 75%.
[00:18:29.260]So, it's dropped almost, you know, eight to ten points.
[00:18:34.600]And, of course, if you look at university enrollment and things like that, we're seeing that actually occur.
[00:18:39.420]So, it's really interesting.
[00:18:40.580]And where they're going is, first of all, to more two-year technical schools, which is really good in some cases because we have so many of those trades jobs we need to fill.
[00:18:50.560]But, also, they're going directly into the workforce.
[00:18:53.260]This number used to be closer to 6%.
[00:18:55.480]You can see it's 13% now.
[00:18:58.120]So, that's why.
[00:18:59.240]That's what's starting to shift among mindsets of young people.
[00:19:02.160]Okay.
[00:19:03.360]But, if you have questions, I go through this.
[00:19:05.320]Stop me.
[00:19:05.720]I'm happy to answer questions, and we'll also do that when we get done.
[00:19:08.400]Okay.
[00:19:09.920]So, I also ask them several questions about their interest in staying or coming back to their local area in the future.
[00:19:17.400]And so, here's a question about if there was a quality career or business opportunity, would you likely stay after high school graduation?
[00:19:26.480]So, this is young people choosing to not leave.
[00:19:29.220]So, this is young people choosing to not leave.
[00:19:59.200]And so, this is young people choosing to not leave.
[00:20:29.180]And so, this is young people choosing to not leave.
[00:20:59.160]But we want to break it out this way so we really get the detailed results.
[00:21:02.300]So, you can see, you know, something very important to us in the western part of the state is agriculture, about 21%.
[00:21:08.000]But that jumps up to 32% among the students from the small schools.
[00:21:12.720]So, 11% higher among those students.
[00:21:15.680]In the arts, we see that go the other direction, that about 15% of the rural schools, but 20% of the students from the urban schools.
[00:21:25.160]And the last one is down in the trades.
[00:21:27.480]It's got a variation.
[00:21:29.140]So among the small schools, 21% of the students said that they're interested in a trades career pathway versus 15% in the larger five schools.
[00:21:37.580]Okay.
[00:21:39.860]And then we really want to know what's currently happening in terms of how students are learning about career opportunities available in their community.
[00:21:48.880]And so we asked for questions here, and they could choose several because some schools do several things.
[00:21:55.840]So this doesn't add up to 100 here.
[00:21:57.900]It's just they can mark.
[00:21:59.120]The ones that relate to them.
[00:22:00.360]Okay.
[00:22:00.980]And so you can see here about 57% said that teachers or counselors talk with them about those local opportunities.
[00:22:07.480]Businesses come to school.
[00:22:10.080]About 29% of students said that.
[00:22:12.620]And 34% said that school provides field trips or job shouting opportunities.
[00:22:18.280]And then lastly, about 24% felt that their school currently doesn't have any of those kind of opportunities.
[00:22:25.480]And I'm going to mine this data.
[00:22:29.100]Because that could be skewed by the lower grades.
[00:22:31.900]You know, 6th, 7th graders may not be aware of some of those opportunities.
[00:22:36.880]So I want to see what that looks like in the high school.
[00:22:39.560]So that's some additional research I need to do there.
[00:22:41.780]Okay.
[00:22:42.460]So another big part of the work that Jordan talked about is internship opportunities following the career cabs.
[00:22:49.380]And so we wanted to know, what is your interest in internship opportunity?
[00:22:53.280]Overall, about 54%.
[00:22:55.100]That's pretty consistent.
[00:22:56.580]Slightly higher in the smaller schools.
[00:22:59.080]Slightly less in the bigger schools.
[00:23:00.900]And then the other thing we want to know about is the trades.
[00:23:04.260]And so we asked them to select which of these trades careers.
[00:23:10.780]And we communicated with colleges and other industry folks around what the primary trade skill job needs are.
[00:23:20.440]And so that's how those made this list here.
[00:23:23.860]So here you can see it in numerical form.
[00:23:26.460]Some variations here.
[00:23:29.800]CDL truck driver is at 21% in the smaller schools.
[00:23:32.860]Diesel mechanics right here is at 23%.
[00:23:38.900]So 21% in CDL, 23% in diesel mechanics.
[00:23:44.080]And the last one that's a variation is in the welding and metal fabrication.
[00:23:49.260]And that jumps up to 33% for the students from the smaller schools.
[00:23:53.860]We want to know if they have
[00:23:59.040]a part-time job right now or an internship opportunity.
[00:24:02.660]So this one is also a variation among all the students in the survey data set.
[00:24:08.560]It was about 32%, but it jumped to 39%
[00:24:12.980]among the students from the smaller schools
[00:24:16.000]and 28% of the larger schools. So that's fairly significant there.
[00:24:21.920]Do you have a small business right now?
[00:24:25.380]This one also varied. And this is what we see often in the
[00:24:29.020]very small community. The job for a teen may not be there.
[00:24:32.160]We also have more students probably involved in 4-H and things like that.
[00:24:35.720]So the overall results is about 15% that have a business now,
[00:24:40.680]but students from the smaller school, it jumped to 21%.
[00:24:44.080]And it was 12% from the five larger schools.
[00:24:47.280]Do you have an interest in owning a business in the future?
[00:24:52.260]This is pretty consistent across the board at 52%.
[00:24:55.380]Interest in taking an entrepreneurship class?
[00:24:59.000]Pretty consistent across the board there.
[00:25:01.280]At this time, do you picture yourself living in this area in the future?
[00:25:07.420]So I'm contrasting this question, which is a framing question into the future,
[00:25:11.420]perhaps after graduation from high school, maybe going to college,
[00:25:15.680]getting some career experience, starting a family.
[00:25:18.020]So that's the framing, okay?
[00:25:19.880]So I previously asked them, do you prefer to stay or return?
[00:25:24.320]And it's a pure question after high school.
[00:25:26.700]This one has some context to it.
[00:25:28.980]And this is kind of the exciting data that we've been seeing for 20 years
[00:25:33.960]that about half of our young people would pitch themselves staying
[00:25:38.780]or coming back to their community in the future.
[00:25:40.420]And you can see that's consistent here.
[00:25:42.120]At 49%, it jumps to 54% from the young people from small communities,
[00:25:48.480]and it's 47% for the larger communities.
[00:25:51.560]So, again, a very hopeful thing for small communities that want
[00:25:56.340]to attract young people that, in the case of this survey, 54% of those from smaller schools,
[00:26:02.150]but even overall, it's 49%. And so that's 1,805 students right there. And what Mylon Wall,
[00:26:10.530]who's on the call with us, knows is a number of years ago, I created a formula to calculate the
[00:26:15.430]impact of those 1,805 students. And it's based on census data from our rural communities that,
[00:26:20.990]on average, couples have two children. And so maybe some of you went away for a while and came
[00:26:27.730]back to a small town, maybe brought a spouse with you that's not from your community like I did,
[00:26:31.450]my wife's from Los Angeles, and we now have four kids and three grandkids too. So you get this
[00:26:38.290]exponential impact when you can attract alums to stay or come back to your community in the future.
[00:26:45.190]It's not just one young person, young adult, it's on average three in a family or four in a family.
[00:26:50.930]And that's kids for our school system, you know, it's customers for our businesses,
[00:26:55.650]it's entrepreneurs, it's community leaders. And this is where we really get the impact
[00:27:00.670]of people attraction in reaching these young people that would like to stay or come back in
[00:27:06.070]the future. Okay. What are some reasons that you would picture yourself living in your community
[00:27:13.850]in the future? And you can see the responses here. And we often see family ties and good
[00:27:18.850]place to raise a family.
[00:27:20.030]Is a important factors in this case, quite a few of them see also a job or business opportunity.
[00:27:26.830]They're leaving the cost of living is going up. And so that's a priority for them as well
[00:27:32.870]as the quality schools. This is a pretty high ranking for quality schools at 28%.
[00:27:38.070]Often that's going to be a little lower in some places I work like in Colorado.
[00:27:42.390]So again, we have really good schools in Nebraska and it shows up in the data.
[00:27:47.330]Okay.
[00:27:48.190]Now,
[00:27:49.990]two factors that are variations in this data from the small schools and large
[00:27:56.030]schools, good place to raise a family,
[00:27:58.350]which is 47% overall jumps to 53 from the small schools and access to
[00:28:04.870]healthcare in the larger schools goes up to 20%. So that makes sense.
[00:28:09.470]They've got regional medical facilities available that the students from
[00:28:13.770]smaller towns don't have. Okay.
[00:28:16.430]We also ask them what some reasons that you would put yourself,
[00:28:19.850]not living in the air in the future.
[00:28:21.550]This is important so we can really address some of those perceived concerns.
[00:28:26.110]Okay. So any of you that work in economic development,
[00:28:29.930]when you talk to your employers, what's their biggest issue right now?
[00:28:33.190]It's access to workforce, right?
[00:28:36.110]We just don't have enough people to fill the jobs available.
[00:28:38.610]But young people are pursuing that they need to leave,
[00:28:41.570]leave the community to pursue a career opportunity and make more money
[00:28:45.090]elsewhere. Okay.
[00:28:46.830]And they're also concerned about shopping and they're,
[00:28:49.830]they're taking the time to do that.
[00:28:50.170]And they're concerned about entertainment and those things. Okay.
[00:28:51.510]But also we want to look at this number and I added this question just
[00:28:54.850]several years ago. Have you been encouraged to leave your community?
[00:28:57.690]And overall it's about 22, 21%.
[00:29:01.050]It drops down to 18% for the students from the smaller schools.
[00:29:05.970]And goes up to 23% from those, from the larger schools. So again,
[00:29:10.790]students in smaller schools,
[00:29:12.170]aren't perceiving that as something that they've been encouraged to do,
[00:29:15.410]which I think is a good thing, obviously. But as we work with the, you know,
[00:29:19.750]the career connections of Western Nebraska,
[00:29:22.290]how we begin to really address these perceptions that those jobs aren't here
[00:29:27.470]because in fact they are,
[00:29:29.410]and a fair number of them are quality jobs that pay pretty well.
[00:29:33.510]So we can begin to overcome some of those things that they are resisting as
[00:29:39.670]not pitching themselves, living in the area in the future,
[00:29:41.570]and then also embrace these things that they value, how we retain, you know,
[00:29:46.930]quality families and communities,
[00:29:49.670]and things like that, quality school systems,
[00:29:51.850]so that they want to stay here while we also create more opportunities to do
[00:29:55.830]that. Okay. Two, two ones. I'll wrap up here.
[00:29:59.630]The last one here is,
[00:30:01.330]have you been asked by an adult for your views on how to make the better
[00:30:04.950]community, a better place to live for teens?
[00:30:06.910]Overall only 17% said that they've been asked for their input.
[00:30:11.390]That's consistent rule in urban. But then when we ask them,
[00:30:15.690]if they were asked by an adult leader, would they volunteer to make their community
[00:30:19.590]better? You can see we've got 66% of the students overall.
[00:30:23.590]That jumps to 75% for students in the small schools,
[00:30:27.590]62% from the bigger schools. Remember I told you earlier about
[00:30:31.630]the ranking of student interests in improving
[00:30:35.650]their community and more volunteer opportunities actually was the last on
[00:30:39.650]the list after more recreational opportunities,
[00:30:43.410]jobs, things like that. So it wasn't their highest
[00:30:47.750]priority there, but if they were asked,
[00:30:49.510]they would like to be involved in their community. So again,
[00:30:53.290]a huge opportunity to engage these youth in
[00:30:56.990]meaningful ways to create the kind of community they want to live in the future.
[00:31:01.390]So the last two things that I've got to do as part of my assessment is go through
[00:31:05.210]all these narrative responses. I've got 3,300 responses about ideas
[00:31:09.310]that they have on how to make their community a better place to live. So we'll be building that into
[00:31:13.150]the summer report and also any additional thoughts that they might have. And so
[00:31:17.170]1,900 students had some additional things.
[00:31:19.430]They wanted to share as well. So we'll be pulling that into the data.
[00:31:22.970]So that's kind of what we're seeing and some of the
[00:31:27.270]key differences and priority areas
[00:31:31.210]that the students are identifying for community economic development.
[00:31:35.090]So any questions on that? And then Jordan, if you want to bring up
[00:31:39.250]the next slide, because what I did was I pulled all that together around
[00:31:43.230]some of the variables that I saw on the data and I created a chart.
[00:31:49.350]And so what this shows you is what I just went through
[00:31:52.390]in differences between the small schools and students
[00:31:56.390]were 1,201 and large schools, it was 2518.
[00:32:01.150]And so the small schools are in blue, the large schools are in red.
[00:32:05.430]And so in rating their community, a little higher.
[00:32:09.290]College after high school, slightly higher. Staying after
[00:32:13.230]high school, slightly higher. Return to the future, slightly higher in the small schools.
[00:32:17.330]Interesting internships,
[00:32:19.270]pretty consistent, but slightly higher. Part-time job or internship, I
[00:32:23.150]mentioned earlier that was quite a bit different. That they have a
[00:32:27.270]business now, again, quite a difference there. Pretty equal
[00:32:31.270]in future business interests and seeking an entrepreneurship class
[00:32:35.310]a little bit higher in picture living in the area in the future.
[00:32:39.270]Pretty consistent on being asked for input, but some difference in
[00:32:43.370]would they volunteer if they were asked. So that kind of just gives you a snapshot of
[00:32:47.250]some of those questions we asked.
[00:32:49.190]And some of the differences and similarities.
[00:32:52.510]And I know we have folks here from larger communities and certainly
[00:32:57.290]we're very encouraged by that data. But a really important
[00:33:01.210]thing from my perspective being from a very small community myself and coming
[00:33:05.210]back home and everything when I was a young guy was
[00:33:08.590]just how many opportunities small communities have when we listen
[00:33:13.210]to the young people. And it shows up in the data. And so I'm really
[00:33:17.170]excited about what comes next here with
[00:33:19.110]the career cabs and the internship opportunities to make some of this
[00:33:23.970]real with these students. So I'll stop there. Happy to answer questions or turn it back
[00:33:29.070]to you, Jordan.
[00:33:30.070]Craig.
[00:33:31.070]Awesome. Oh, go ahead.
[00:33:32.070]Sorry.
[00:33:33.070]Can you guys hear me? This is Brittany Harden from the state. I just had a quick
[00:33:37.230]question about the six core pathways that you guys are utilizing. Can you reiterate
[00:33:44.450]what those are again, please?
[00:33:46.110]Oh, you mean the clustering, the career pathways?
[00:33:49.030]The clusters, sorry.
[00:33:50.190]Let me pull that up here quick.
[00:33:52.730]Thank you.
[00:33:55.310]Here. We should put that in the presentation here.
[00:33:59.270]Yeah, that's a good idea.
[00:34:01.970]So let me go. Whoops. I don't want that open. So let me stop. Hey, can you stop share for
[00:34:12.490]a second?
[00:34:13.490]Oh, yeah. There you go.
[00:34:18.950]Let me pull this over for you a little bit.
[00:34:20.790]I can.
[00:34:22.430]Can you see that on your screen?
[00:34:25.130]Yes.
[00:34:27.430]Thank you.
[00:34:28.370]So that's the Nebraska Department of Education.
[00:34:31.330]So if you talk to those folks about the CTE career pathways, and you can see the 16 are in here and clustered.
[00:34:38.030]So under business management, I'm sorry, business marketing and management, we've got marketing, hospitality and tourism, business management and finance.
[00:34:46.750]Under ag, food and natural resources, you can see that clustered into one area there.
[00:34:51.090]Under communications, communications arts, information technology.
[00:34:54.950]Skill and technical trades, manufacturing, energy and engineering, architecture, construction, transportation, distribution.
[00:35:03.930]Health sciences, of course, has a lot of different career pathways just in that one sector.
[00:35:08.570]And we have human services, government, public administration, human services, law, public safety.
[00:35:16.550]Law enforcement, education, training, which is kind of an interesting cluster.
[00:35:20.770]Law enforcement, education, but they had to put them somewhere, right?
[00:35:24.410]Sometimes these aren't perfect.
[00:35:25.790]But that's how the 16 career clusters get pulled together by the state.
[00:35:30.950]Different states do it differently.
[00:35:32.930]Colorado has energy as a career pathway.
[00:35:35.110]They have a 17th one that other states don't have.
[00:35:37.990]Well, here we do have it now.
[00:35:39.770]Okay.
[00:35:40.210]So they did add it in.
[00:35:41.330]So this has been evolving over the years.
[00:35:43.670]But currently, this is what?
[00:35:46.350]Nebraska uses.
[00:35:47.250]So all your schools would be using this with their students, with their current technical
[00:35:51.510]education programmings.
[00:35:52.770]And so part of this with career pathways, and I want to get ahead of you, Jordan, but
[00:35:56.390]we're aligning what the students said their career pathway interests are with the workforce
[00:36:01.150]needs and employers in three career cluster hubs that we're going to be doing here in
[00:36:07.190]November.
[00:36:07.610]So those students in those career pathways can actually go out and see what the work
[00:36:13.650]environment is actually like for the career pathway.
[00:36:16.150]That's the way they're preparing for.
[00:36:17.210]So that's where work comes next.
[00:36:19.570]So thanks for the question, Brittany.
[00:36:21.390]Does that answer your question?
[00:36:22.850]Yes, thank you.
[00:36:25.830]Jordan, you have a little more to share, is that right?
[00:36:33.710]Or no?
[00:36:34.090]Yes, I do.
[00:36:35.570]Yep, just getting my screen shared.
[00:36:37.410]All righty.
[00:36:39.190]So yeah, so as Craig was talking about, the next step is the career cabs.
[00:36:43.350]And so we're going to...
[00:36:45.950]Do this for 10th graders for their pathway interests and career opportunities.
[00:36:51.130]So like Craig said, we're going to utilize the teen survey results
[00:36:55.410]to identify the industries and career paths that students are most interested in,
[00:36:59.970]which I will share with you on the next couple slides.
[00:37:03.010]But we're going to invite employers to host students on site.
[00:37:06.370]And then we'll also communicate with counselors on data because
[00:37:09.910]schools are already collecting a lot of this data and have an idea of what their students
[00:37:14.110]are interested in and not.
[00:37:15.850]And so we're going to do this for 10th graders for their pathway interests and career opportunities.
[00:37:15.930]So like Craig said, we're going to utilize the teen survey results to identify the industries and career paths that students are most interested in,
[00:37:15.930]And then we'll also communicate with counselors on data because schools are already collecting a lot of this data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:37:15.930]So we'll also work with counselors on that data.
[00:37:45.910]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:38:15.890]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:38:45.870]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:39:15.850]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:39:45.830]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:40:15.810]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:40:45.790]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:41:15.770]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:41:45.750]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:42:15.730]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:42:45.710]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:43:15.690]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:43:45.670]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:44:15.650]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:44:45.630]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:45:15.610]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:45:45.590]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:46:15.570]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:46:45.550]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:47:15.530]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:47:45.510]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:48:15.490]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:48:45.470]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:49:15.450]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:49:45.430]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:50:15.410]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:50:45.390]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:51:15.370]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:51:45.350]So we'll also work with counselors on that data and have an idea of what their students are interested in and not.
[00:51:45.730]Thank you.
[00:51:46.090]Bye, everyone.
[00:51:47.850]- Bye.
[00:51:48.690]Thank you.

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Career Connections of Western Nebraska

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