When did you start on the pathway that led you to the career you have ultimately ended up in? As the cost of postsecondary education, particularly at four-year universities, has risen exponentially, so has the momentum for high schools to better equip students with the resources to be successful in careers immediately following graduation. Many paths lead to a life of purpose and Windom Area Schools has sharpened its focus on six career pathways to help our students gain rich experience while also feeling better suited to make informed decisions about their futures.

Students at Windom Area Schools get the option of gaining experience in six career pathways:  Medical/Health Sciences, Education, Business & Marketing, Manufacturing & Engineering, Agriculture and Information Technology. Our pathways have a mix of courses that have a long tradition of being offered in our schools, as well as new courses that have been developed specifically for a pathway. As students progress down a pathway, the onus is less on “acquiring” knowledge and more on application and “doing.” Real world experiences are embedded within our pathways courses. Specifically, students in our Intro to Medical Careers course have completed job shadowing at Windom Area Health, while students in our Intro to Manufacturing and Engineering course have completed weeks-long internships at Fast Global and Toro, respectively. The further a student gets down a path the more hands on the material becomes. Our goal is to provide rich and meaningful experiences for our students to truly explore what they wish to do when they graduate. 

While our specific career pathway courses provide unmatched exploration within a career field, our core curriculum provides students with opportunities to build their 21st century employability skills. Students entering the future workforce need to be adaptable, communicate clearly, problem-solve, and collaborate while thinking creatively but also critically. Employability skills are embedded within our required courses so no matter the career pathway a student chooses, we know the foundation built within our learners is strong. 

Pathways Night is a great opportunity for our 8th & 9th grade students and their parents to learn about Career Pathways at Windom Area Schools. This year’s Pathways Night is Monday, March 9th. In addition to students and parents learning from our specific pathways teams, we will also be hosting a career fair to help students connect the dots between the classroom and their ultimate Career Pathway. Furthermore, our students in grades 6-8, starting with the 2020-2021 school year, will now be taking a quarter-long (9 week) course in agriculture, industrial technology, family and consumer sciences as well as art, and also computers in 8th grade. Our goal in expanding pathways exploratory courses into the middle school is to better help our students formulate realistic and meaningful high school plans prior to entering high school. Early exposure to basic content in careers at a developmentally appropriate pace will arm our students with experiences to make better more informed decisions about their future plans. 

The path to success is not always a straight line, there may be curves, detours, etc. While we encourage our students to gain a multitude of experiences down a pathway, we also fully support exploration of multiple pathways. It is impossible to know what the future holds, but the bevy of experiences provided to our students prior to high school graduation assure our Windom Eagles will be ready no matter the challenge.