News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Putnam County Schools reporting an increase in ready-graduate students of almost 13 percent over the past year.
Graduate-ready students have hit certain benchmarks in ACT testing or completing various post-secondary opportunities. Putnam County Schools CTE Supervisor Jackie Vester said the increase in ready graduates is due to the core curriculum the school system is using.
“One of the things that we looked at doing was building in these early post-secondary opportunities into our core curriculum,” Vester said. “So by incorporating that in it has allowed students just within the core curriculum to obtain ready grad through that two EPSOS One Industry credential pathway.”
Vester said a majority of the opportunities to obtain industry credentials is through the school systems CTE program. Vester said even with the large increase the school system expects the ready grad rate to increase even more next year.
“We have been working with our counselors and administration at each of our high schools to make sure that our students have the opportunity to meet that ready grad status,” Vester said. “And we think now that those pieces are in place for our students we’re only going to continue to see an increase.”
Putnam County Schools Secondary Supervisor Bubba Winningham said a student is deemed a ready graduate by either having a score of 21 or higher on the ACT; four early post-secondary opportunities; two such opportunities with an industry credential; or two post-secondary opportunities while scoring above a 31 on the ASVAB test.
Winningham said ready graduate students will see more success after high school in either a two-year college, four-year college, or straight into the workforce.
“We have so many different students that we are servicing in high schools right now,” Winningham said. “There are so many different careers and pathways that they can go down. We just want to make sure whichever they one they choose they are successful in.”
Vester said the school system also has a personal finance class that counts as an industry credential. Vester said the class teaches students how to manage money. Vester said they started the class as many companies expressed the issue of day-to-day performance being affected by employees being stressed over mismanaging money.
