Opening the Future to All Learners
School-to-work. School-to-careers. School-to-life. School-to-what?! No matter how we define the process that takes each of us from school out into the world, we all have one thing in common — we want to be happy and satisfied with our choices. Making the transition from school to a career and to life in general can be tough. No matter who we are, where we come from, or what we choose to do the choices we make as we grow in our development will affect the quality of our lives forever.
Making the journey from infancy to adulthood can at times have an excruciatingly narrow focus, especially within the school-to-work movement. School-to-work emphasizes career development; work experience; connections between schools, community partners, and business; and lots of hands-on learning to top the whole thing off. We are ultimately trying to achieve a better outcome—to have more successful results for all learners. However, there is one thing we seldom stop to consider. Making the move from school to adult life is about much more than career development — it's about developing a life!
Making life choices does not occur in isolation, but is based on a multitude of experiences and conditions — family values and history, ethnic and cultural background, socioeconomic status, gender, personality, talents and interests, friends, social experiences, faith traditions, and much more. Few of us would want to be described by only one part of our experience, such as being a learner who is gifted or a learner with a disability. Each of us represents an intricate, multi-dimensional story and our stories are extremely important in guiding the path that we take through our school-to-work opportunities.
If we are to be truly successful through our efforts within the school-to-work initiative, we must start to look at each learner as an individual and to learn about them as a person, above all else. Each learner we work with is in need of our care, our guidance, and our understanding of what is really important to them and to their future. School-to-work provides a unique opportunity to not only build relationships, but to help learners build their individual skills, strengths, talents, and dreams.
In creating school-to-work systems, we would be wise to find multiple ways of connecting learners with any opportunity that supports their individual goals and dreams. Each school-to-work opportunity that we build as part of our system should have benefit for every learner within our system. Each individual learner deserves a chance to access and try any opportunity that they believe will further their chances of being successful.
Unfortunately and more often than not, we base the options provided to each learner on our preconceived ideas about their abilities and potential, as well as the limited options we have developed, rather than on individual choice. This can interfere with our ability to offer equal opportunity and access to all.
If we are to create a future in which all members of our communities are equally valued and valuable, then we must begin to make change happen. We must learn to let go of turf issues and work together as partners to be creative, flexible, and open to the possibilities. We must let go of the fear that as more learners have access, it will mean less benefit for everyone. We must make time to discuss how the work we are doing can benefit everyone and we must question our motives for offering certain options to certain learners, and not to others. Most of all, we must let go of old stereotypes.
Including all learners in school-to-work is really about supporting and advocating for freedom of choice: The freedom to choose our own path and goals for the future, and to be cheered on as we strive to take each step that will lead us to our dream. This is what it really means to provide access and benefit to all learners in school-to-work opportunities!

Award-Winning School-to-Work Sites
The All Means All School-to-Work Award is sponsored through a federal grant project focusing on finding model strategies that ensure access and choice for all learners in school-to-work. All award profiles are available on the project Web site (ici.umn.edu/all). This issue of School toWhat? highlights two of our current award sites.

[Editorial Note: Funding for the All Means All School-to-Work Project ended in 1996. The following sites may no longer be in operation, or the contacts may be out of date. We are publishing this information for your use as much of it may be relevant to the current work of assisting youth with disabilities in the transition from school to post-school opportunities.]

Winnacunnet Cooperative High School
When principal Roberta Neuman arrived at Winnacunnet High School in 1988, it was clear to her, the superintendent of schools, and a supportive school board that two changes were necessary: The school needed to be restructured to a model of schooling that would motivate all students, and teachers needed to be retrained in methodologies that would address all learning styles. The Career Paths curriculum adopted by the school was part of the answer.The curriculum includes the following components —

•	comprehensive guidance and counseling program
•	activity-based instructional methodology in a related instructional curriculum
•	high performance standards for all students
•	a greater number of students in secondary vocational-technical opportunities
•	career majors articulated with appropriate post-secondary programs
•	dissemination of the program as a model to other schools within the state and region

Career Paths was developed over several years following a master plan for school restructuring. Recognizing the limitations of a strategy that separated students into categories, consensus was reached that the plan must be for all students, with opportunities for flexibility as appropriate for each learner. The school phased this curriculum in over a four-year period, making it possible to address the critical needs for retraining staff and for minimizing the stress on students dealing with graduation requirements from two separate curriculum models.
Evaluation of the strategy has been done by interviewing counselors, teachers and students. Annual surveys of participating students have indicated awareness of more career options available to them. Student Career Plan Portfolios also evidence more thoughtfulness, reflection, and more focused career preparation through Career Paths. Through both student internships and teacher externships, links with work-based learning are more clearly defined.

For more information on the Career Paths program, contact Paul Cuetera, Coordinator, Winnacunnet Cooperative High School, Alumni Drive, Hampton, NH 03842, (603)926-3395 x 262 or email cuetara@ winnacunnet.k12.nh.us.

Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center (The Met)
The overall goal for developing The Met was to provide the state and nation with a new vision of secondary schooling: close relationships with adults, real work of consequence, and individualized education emanating from what's meaningful to students. Its daily mission is to prepare 95 ninth and tenth grade students for responsible, productive adulthood.
The Met is a laboratory for a statewide effort to improve secondary education. It prepares all kinds of students for careers, college, and citizenship using strategies that capitalize on the knowledge that adolescents are powerfully motivated to learn in the context of real work, in areas of personal interest. To help students progress towards graduation requirements through real work of personal relevance, the Met curriculum is developed one student at a time. Every student has a learning team including the student, his/her parents or guardians, an advisor-teacher, and a workplace mentor. It meets regularly to build an individualized program. Central to every student's program is a long-term internship in a workplace with an adult mentor, called an LTI (Learning Through Internship). All Met students spend about two full school days per week at their LTI site, accomplishing real work that benefits the organization, but that also promotes the learning of important general skills such as reading, algebra, and empirical reasoning. LTIs are arranged for individual students based on their interests, and students stay at a site as long as the experience is productive for them.
The Met doesn't “track” students into static groups, steer them away from particular work sites, or otherwise restrict their opportunities because of their abilities. And students aren't graded or compared. Instead, detailed narrative reports and frequent communication among student, advisor, parent, and mentor keep all informed about the student's progress.

For more information on The Met, contact Dennis Littky, Sheppard Building, Room 325, 80 Washington Street, Providence, RI 02903, (401)277-5046.

Providing Access and Benefit to All Learners
School-to-Work officially began with the passage of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act in 1994. The Act says everyone — regardless of their gender, socioeconomic status, disability, race, or any other civil rights issue — has the right to participate in school-to-work opportunities. All 50 states now have implementation grants to create statewide school-to-work systems. What we do not have are school-to-work systems that provide equal opportunity, freedom of choice, and individual planning for every single learner.
So, how do we start down this often rocky road of working to provide access and equal opportunity to all learners? Below are some possible points of departure —

•	Develop an all learners team on your local school-to-work partnership. This team can lead the way for your community when it comes to including everybody in school-to-work. Have them work on the following steps.
•	Define “all learners.” Your partnership must share a common definition of what you truly mean by “all learners.” Should a line be drawn as to who can participate and who cannot? What is your vision for your school-to-work system when it comes to serving all learners? Before you can move forward, your partnership must discuss this issue.
•	Develop three lists. List the learners you are currently serving through school-to-work. Then list the learners you are currently struggling to serve. For this second group, develop a list of barriers that affect their ability to participate. Barriers should be systemic, environmental, or attitudinal — not based on preconceived ideas about certain learners' potentials or abilities. Do you see any similarities among the different groups? What is the number one reason why these learners are not participating? Your team needs to come to consensus on the answers.
•	Brainstorm possible strategies. For each barrier, brainstorm a list of possible strategies that could help. Try the most simple, common sense approach. Why is your school-to-work system successful for the learners currently being served? Could these same things work for learners not being served? What needs to happen within your system in order to provide access and benefit for all learners?
•	Develop a simple action plan. Based on the barriers and strategies identified, develop a simple action plan that includes basic, initial steps that can be taken to begin providing access. Include individual and team responsibilities for your partnership, as well as time deadlines and next steps. If you run into trouble with achieving your plan, agree to be flexible. Change your plan when necessary and adjust your goals according to progress made. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day!
•	Establish a state-level leadership team. Recruit local partnership members to serve on a state All Learners leadership team. This team can work at a state level to support and enhance the efforts of those at the local level. The state of Minnesota is currently doing this, and will use this team to provide a place for partnerships to network and support one another, to provide guidance, and leadership, to develop new resources and trainings, and to support the local efforts of school-to-work partnerships.

Learners are not one dimensional. Each of us has many different layers that work together in creating who we are. No one learner is only a gifted learner, a learner of color, a learner with a disability, a learner who is retired, or a learner in a correctional system. Additional questions your school-to-work partnership and state system may want to discuss include —

•	How does your school-to-work system and partnership define or categorize learners? How does this affect the school-to-work options they have access to?
•	Do you have mechanisms in place to support learners to participate in an option that is not designed just for them?
•	How does your staff work together to ensure that all learners can be successful within experience of their choice?

It is important to have a very good understanding of how your system is designed to address the individual goals, dreams, and wishes of each learner while at the same time emphasizing their skills, talents, and areas where they may need some support.
Learning to look outside the boxes in which we work is difficult, but it can be done. Working together to ensure that every option we develop is relevant, meaningful, and accessible to every single learner is not only challenging, but worthwhile. Challenge yourself to get involved, to think outside your box, and to be an advocate for making sure that every learner has the ability to make a choice!

For more information contact Pam Stenhjem, National Center on Secondary Education and Transition, at (612) 615-3863, or email huntx010@umn.edu.

School-to-Work Resources

School-to-Work Internet Gateway (www.stw.ed.gov/). This site has a large variety of resources spanning many different topical areas. Check out their All Learners resource list.

All Means All Web Site Wizard Question and Answer Page (ici.umn.edu/all/questions.html). Anyone with a question about anything to do with school-to-work — particularly about including all learners — can participate. Strategies, resources, real-life experiences, and common sense ideas will be shared through posting the questions and strategies on the Web site.

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (www.ed.gov/free). Nearly 30 new federal resources have been added to this Web site developed by over 35 federal agencies to make hundreds of teaching and learning resources from across the federal government available — and searchable — in one place.

Ensuring Equity with Alternative Assessments — Pathways to School Improvement Web Site (www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/as0cont.htm). This excellent web resource discusses how the move toward universal high standards neccessitates unbiased assessment tools to ensure equity. The site identifies critical issues in assessment such as ensuring equity with alternative assessments and rethinking assessment and its role in supporting educational reform. The site contains many practical and informative links to complementary resources, including video and audio files.

The views expressed in School to What? are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the All Means All School-to-Work Project; Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning; Institute on Community Integration or their funding sources. The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning are equal opportunity employers and educators.