New Initiative Aims to Improve College and Career Readiness in Rural Schools across New York State

A $1.5 million dollar college and career readiness program for rural schools throughout New York and Vermont was announced last week by College for Every Student (CFES) Brilliant Pathways, a non-profit organization based in Essex, New York. The program requires schools to apply for the program though there is no cost to the 20 schools that will be invited to participate.

In an interview conducted last week, Program Director Brett McClelland described the goals of CFES and explained how the new initiative rolled out last week will help improve college attendance among rural youth in New York’s North Country.

College for Every Student

Begun over 30 years ago, CFES utilizes three core practices: a focus on college and career readiness, mentoring, and fostering essential skills in students. These include goal setting, leadership, teamwork, perseverance, agility, and networking.

Taking a community-based approach, CFES seeks to train educators and community members to become college and career readiness (CCR) mentors. McClelland reported that CFES has already trained nearly 1,000 such advisors across the northeast and 70 more adults are currently undergoing training. Mentors are crucial, McClelland explained, as guidance counselors, on average, have hundreds of students that they advise, whereas mentors can provide a one-on-one approach that can help students learn about the college process. “If we have more advisors in those schools, we’re going to have more opportunities to guide those students toward their goals,” he said.

In “exposing students to opportunities,” as McClelland put it, CFES views college and career readiness as “all-encompassing.” In other words, CFES seeks to guide students towards a variety of postsecondary pathways that may include career training, BOCES and certificate programs, and community college.

Crucial to the success of CFES is their ability to leverage the resources and knowledge of partners that include organizations as diverse and far-reaching as the Kansas City Chiefs NFL team to the ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont.

North Country College & Career Readiness Program

On April 22, CFES announced a new $1.5 million program aimed at supporting college and career readiness across northeastern New York State and Vermont. CFES is currently recruiting applicants and will select 20 schools to participate in the program which will be at no cost to participants. The program is especially timely, McClelland explained, as school budgets are being slashed and staff are being cut due to the fallout from the pandemic.

Each school selected to participate in the program will be assigned a program director whose focus is to promote college and career readiness within the school. Educators will also be given access to what McClelland referred to as the “enormous toolbox” of CFES which includes dozens of webinars, hands-on activities, and lesson plans. In addition, educators, staff members, and community members will be invited to train as CCR advisors.

These broad steps will be accompanied by particular programs and initiatives for individual schools. As McClelland explained, “In every school it’s going to be tailored to what they need… every school’s needs are different.”

To learn more about NYKids’ research – including case studies of Crown Point Central School, a CFES school – visit our research results page.

If you are seeking opportunities to learn from positive outlier schools in how they promote college and career readiness, please consider signing up for professional development offerings with Capital Region BOCES here.

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