Your child has arrived in high school, but now what?
It’s complicated. Things have changed a lot since you graduated. There are higher expectations. There is more technology. The competition for scholarships and financial aid has increased. How do you begin to guide your son or daughter through this maze of class choices, activities and important life decisions?
High school is not child’s play anymore. Consequently, parents are becoming increasingly aware of one fact. Long before college, high school is the cradle of career choices. Mary Martha Gingerella, from AZ Leaders and Learners, calls herself an intermediary on this subject. She equips high school students with integrative, career-minded coaching strategies.
“If you haven’t made a plan in your sophomore year, you may be in trouble,” Mary Martha observed. The long-time human resource/business professional and career management consultant, Mary Martha spent three years in a high school providing college and career counseling for students. During this time, she recognized a need to collate the academic high school platform with the professional trenches of the real world.
A bonded vision such as this is difficult to find in high schools. Tight schedules don’t allow time for job shadowing, identifying adult mentors, or going on field trips to explore career fields. Students have trouble envisioning how they will use their classroom learning in the workplace.
“I had to deal with the reality side of high school when coaching my own children,” Mary Martha recalled. “As a mother and counseling professional, I discovered where the gaps were. Parents need to update their educational frame of reference and the questions they need to be asking today.”
The Las Sendas resident moved to Arizona from Ohio in 1983 after college. She married her husband, Michael, soon thereafter. Eventually, the couple adopted their two sons, Matthew and Christopher. With Mary Martha’s help, their boys successfully navigated the secondary education scenarios and have now moved on to their post-secondary lives.
“Career exploration and development is the weakest area in the high schools,” Mary Martha said. “The system is not structured to adapt to a fast-changing labor market and teens trying to figure out what are viable future professions. Only about 20 percent of students get the attention they need.” Although numbers vary by school and student, national statistics suggest counselors spend an average of 38 minutes annually per student discussing college and career planning.
According to this career counselor, while the standard of academic advising is typically high, connecting real-time career exploration and development with academics is low. Arizona high school counselors, sparsely distributed at a ratio of one counselor per 743 students, are over-challenged. There is very little time for a one-on-one session with the student to research individual inclinations and talents, let alone any dedicated time for ongoing individual counseling and connecting the student’s intentions with community resources and jobs.
“Since the academic schedules are extremely tight, and there are many required courses, students don’t get to explore what they want to do,” Mary Martha stated. As a result, students may start their exploration in college, when there are significant costs attached. “College debt increases when you have to change majors,” she noted. College students graduating in 2009 emerged with an average student loan debt of $24,000.
Even though the Arizona State Board of Education established Education Career and Action Plans for all students in grades nine through 12 in 2008, this noble mandate is unfunded and remains more theoretical than practical, given school resources. However, an integrative plan of a student’s coursework with future professional goals tied to tangible actions and progress is desperately needed.
With her extensive counseling and career management experience, Mary Martha can help distill a personalized high school plan. “We need to help kids earlier to figure out what they want to do,” she said.
This hardly means putting students on a track. Rather, it is partnering with them to model and teach transformational, transitional and entrepreneurial skills for an ever-changing job market. Mary Martha applies the same strategies with teens (and their families) as she uses every day in her career management counseling with adults who have been displaced from their jobs and seeking new employment.
“High school is where the kids need the most guidance,” Mary Martha stated, “even though they may want to keep parents at an arm’s distance to exercise their emerging independence. If you invest in high school, the cost of education will be less later.”
Education is complex. It must encompass a broad base of professionals with areas of expertise to support students in making informed decisions about lives after high school. And the value of hands-on experience and peer lessons