Education Spotlight: King George School Division Receives Cash Award in National Competition

The division made the semi-finalist round of the U.S. Department of Education's Career Z Challenge, which sought innovative ideas for expanding work-based learning opportunities.

By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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King George County Public Schools has won a $20,600 prize from the U.S. Department of Education for completing the semi-finalist round of the Career Z Challenge—a multiphase national competition seeking innovative ideas to expand work-based learning in high schools.

The Career Z Challenge launched in May of 2023. Entries selected to move on to the semi-finalist and finalist rounds are eligible to receive a portion of the $2.5 million prize pool, as well as targeted professional development, training, and networking opportunities.

“The Department of Education chose us as one of 81 [semi-finalist] schools nationwide for our plan to promote work-based learning, and we’re very excited about that,” said Terri Rinko, coordinator of work-based learning at King George High School.

Of the 81 semi-finalists, only 73—including King George—completed all the requirements to receive the prize money, including completing 40 hours of professional development and submitting a 20-page final report demonstrating satisfactory progress made toward implementing the plan.

The high school’s winning plan, developed by staff and students, is the King George Career Academy, a program in which Career and Technical Education students starting in 10th grade choose a structured career “flight path.”

Work-based learning is an instructional strategy that enhances classroom learning by connecting it to the workplace, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

King George is a small, rural school division with only one high school and limited personnel, Rinko said, “and primarily, up to this point, work-based learning has been aligned to particular classes, because that’s what particular teachers have chosen to use as an extension of their class, through projects and small-groups.”

“What we decided to do is, since we don’t have a great amount of funding, is throw out the idea that we would like to do more with what we have,” she continued. “We thought that could be accomplished by pooling resources and establishing a career academy structure in our CTE department.”

The Career Academy will officially launch next school year. The plan is that every CTE student will declare a career path their sophomore year.

There are five broad programs within the CTE department, each with several specialized “flight paths:”

• Agriculture: Horticulture (landscaping/greenhouse)

• Health and Human Services: health sciences, nurse aide/medical assistant, NJROTC, criminal justice

• Architecture, Construction and Manufacturing: carpentry, sheet metal, welding, building trades, drafting

• IT/Business: cybersecurity, computer information systems, computer science

• Marketing: sports marketing, accounting, multi-media web design

Rinko said the prize money will be used towards branding and educational materials to ensure that all students and families know about the new Career Academy.

“We want our students to understand that they can leave [high school] with a plan,” she said. “We want them to understand what the next steps are for post-secondary—whether that’s trade school, an apprenticeship, a two-year college, or a four-year college.”

While students are in the high school’s Career Academy program, they’ll be engaging with local businesses and their senior year will involve a “high quality” internship or independent study, Rinko said.

“The beauty of our plan is that it will allow us to do more with what we have,” she said. “We’re building this program to be sustainable.”

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