Update from Alignment Nashville:
In the fall of 2008, Metro Nashville Public Schools began to restructure its high schools into smaller, more personalized learning communities. These smaller communities came in the form of Freshman Academies and Career and Thematic Academies.
In the 2009-2010 school year, most of the district's 12 comprehensive high schools will offer Freshman Academies, which group ninth graders together with a team of teachers and an advisor. In addition, all students will be enrolled in a course called Freshman Seminar which will help them learn about various aspects of careers, as well as learning about themselves through guided exercises, activities, and personal inventory tests.
PENCIL, in collaboration with Metro Schools and the Alignment Nashville Small Learning Communities committee, has developed a Career Mentoring Program which will be a companion to the Freshman Seminar classes in the following five pilot high schools during the 2009-2010 school year: Antioch High, Cane Ridge High, Glencliff High, McGavock High, and Overton High. PENCIL seeks adult professionals within the Nashville community to spend thirty minutes to an hour per week for a minimum of 12 weeks working with and mentoring three 9th grade students on careers and personal development which follows what they are learning in their Freshman Seminar classes. In addition, volunteers will be asked to provide a job shadowing opportunity, in which the three students can visit the workplace one day and shadow their mentor and other employees on the job. We hope to encourage positive relationships between students and mentors which will help students learn more about careers, understand themselves better, and see the value of education to success in life.
For more information about the Career Mentoring Program, please contact Suzanne Warner, Program Director, at (615)242-3167 ext 225 or swarner@pencilfd.org.
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