Fall 2023 - Future Ready Spotlight

As a district, we want all of our learners to be #FutureReady so they can pursue their interests and passions throughout their educational experience in Piper as well as their lives beyond graduation. We seek to make this goal a reality though creating engaging, relevant learning experiences for ALL of our students, from the Piper Early Childhood Center all the way through Piper High School. In this month's Future Ready Spotlight, we want to showcase just a few of these experiences that are taking place in all of our buildings throughout the district!

For our students in Pre-K through 5th grade, we seek to INSPIRE their curiosity through career exploration and strength building. With this goal in mind, Piper Early Childhood Center hosted their 3rd annual Touch a Truck event on October 12th. Pre-K and kindergarten students explored community vehicles, and interacted with our community partners. Students were able to climb, explore, interact, ask questions, and learn about the jobs and importance of the vehicles. Don’t forget the best part…honk the loud horns and sirens! We'd like to thank our participating community partners: Army, KCKPD, KCKFD, JE Dunn, Unified Government Wastewater, and Knetter Farms.

At both Piper Prairie Elementary and Piper Creek Elementary, staff members recognize the pivotal role of shaping students' career awareness and confidence. In an effort to help our students grow in our district's Portrait of a Graduate competencies, both Prairie and Creek have brought those skills to an age-appropriate lens by exploring The DeBruce Agilities. Leveraging data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on 1000+ jobs, the Agilities intertwines students' interests and abilities to unveil potential career paths and inspire self-reflective goal setting. Through community building, collaborative work, and content integration, both Prairie and Creek have fostered the Agilities, laying the groundwork for being #FutureReady by instilling each child with an understanding of their unique value. Prairie introduces a new Agility each week for collective exposure and understanding of the varied context of the application and ideas to grow these interests and skills. At Creek, students were given an inventory to help them identify their own personal Agilities, allowing them to maximize strengths and cultivate areas for growth to ensure a solid foundation for their academic and professional journeys.

For our middle school students, we want to IGNITE their interests in learning about potential career paths. In preparation for the Academies at PHS, Piper Middle School students have opportunities to learn more about these paths of study through their Academy Prep and Project Lead the Way (PLTW) courses, which are offered for all students at all grades starting this year. Throughout their time at PMS, students will have exposure to all six Piper High School Academies:

• 6th Grade Academy Prep: Business, Entrepreneurship & Innovation Academy and Public Services Academy
• 7th Grade Academy Prep: Health & Life Sciences Academy and Arts & Media Academy
• 8th Grade Academy Prep: Human Services Academy
• PLTW Courses: Design, Production & Aviation Academy

Through this plan, middle school students will be better able to identify their chosen Academy when they prepare to enter PHS, which will help them to better explore their interests and passions throughout their high school experience.

On Tuesday, November 14, 2023 Piper High School hosted a Real World Roundtable event for our Senior Capstone students. This event allowed students to engage in the empathy step of the Design Thinking Framework as they dive into their Senior Career-Focused Research Paper. This empathy work is intended to help students gain a greater understanding of the needs in their identified career fields of interest. The students met in small groups with an industry partner aligned with their Academy and Capstone Experience. They prepared several interview questions for the industry partner to allow them to gain a deeper understanding of their possible future career and to discuss current challenges faced in that industry. This also provided an opportunity for students to practice a critical Portrait of a Graduate Competency: Communication. We were able to host approximately 40 industry partners for this event!