One thing that I wanted to work on this year was a new bulletin board for my College Spotlight. Highlighting a specific college each month is part of my plan to make sure that all our kids are “Career and College Ready” before they graduate from high school. Last year’s board was not very fancy or eye appealing. It did however, serve the purpose of getting kids to start looking ahead at colleges.
Here is a picture of last year’s bulletin board.
Last year I was also not very organized in terms of picking colleges to “spotight”. It was really a random pull a name out of a hat. This year, as I organized my yearly calendar, I dedicated each month to a specific college.
This year my colleges are:
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September–SUNY Cortland
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October–Wentworth Institute of Technology
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November–Tompkins Cortland Community College
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December–Elmira College
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January–Wyoming Technical Institute
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February–Faculty Colleges Spotlighted
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March–Cornell University
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April–Long Island University
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May–Pepperdine College
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June–college spotlight month off
I tried to focus on career prep (WyoTech) and higher learning and have the spotlighted colleges offer a range of difficulties, prices, and majors, and locations. The goal is also to not give students a lot of information about the spotlighted college, but rather to have them research and look up the critical information so they can determine if it may one day be an option for them.
Here is this year’s bulletin board:
These are the directions that are posted for the students (Click on the picture to download):
These are the fact finding forms for the students to fill out (Click on the picture to download):
At the beginning of each month I announce the new college that is being spotlighted during am announcements, and the rules associated with the contest. I also try to hit up kids during lunch and studyhall to fill out sheets if I walk into the room and see that they are not doing anything. I collect all the forms that come back to me and I hold a raffle for one that have the basic information correct. Raffle prizes include t-shirts, folders, cinch saks, posters, water bottles, etc from colleges that have donated different items. I just open my drawer and let the winner pick one item. This year I hope to have one from each grade level each month. I just need a few more prizes. I got these prizes by emailing different colleges and explaining what I was doing and asked for a donation.
Here’s some of my stash:
How do you encourage a campus that is “Career and College Ready”? Leave a comment below or join the discussion in one of the ways that follow:
