Since 2014, St. Landry Parish School District has used Kuder’s reliable, evidence-based college and career readiness solutions to meet Louisiana state requirements and help guide 6-12th grade students on their path to career success. Our programs are able to meet state standards by offering configurable tools and resources that assist students and their counselors in completing an individual graduation plan (IGP) by the end of 8th grade. Throughout their high school years, students will continue to maintain and update their IGP to meet critical milestones along their journey toward graduation day. Parents must also be engaged in this process as they are required to review and sign off on their child’s IGP each academic year.
In December 2015, a financial aid policy was enacted requiring all Louisiana public school students to submit a FAFSA or TOPS application to encourage equitable access to available federal funds for postsecondary education. Kuder provides essential knowledge and instruction via our Finance 101 course modules that introduce foundational financial literacy concepts and guide students step-by-step through the FAFSA application process.
St. Landry utilizes several components of the Kuder Navigator® system with its students, though the first step in this process is always to take our research-based career assessments, as their accurate results will serve as a springboard into every other facet of the platform. These assessments have also been extremely valuable to the district’s counselors, who frequently leverage the assessment results to align goals and objectives between students, parents, and other educators.
With parents being the primary influence over their child’s career aspirations, cultivating this shared understanding and educational directive is critical for long-term student success. As St. Landry administrators look for effective ways to help their students and families save time and money, they’ve found that matching postsecondary plans to the student’s personal interests has proven to be the best strategy because it provides a detailed course of action for all parties involved. With accurate career assessment results, students can confidently pursue occupational pathways while parents and counselors offer vital support and guidance along the way.
Once students have their assessment results in hand, they’re ready to explore a wide array of powerful tools and features within Navigator, such as the occupational database, resume builder, entrance exam preparation courses, and more, to lead them toward their postsecondary goals.
Kuder offers a customizable bundle of college access resources that specifically support activities college-bound students must complete, like preparing for the ACT or SAT, learning about financial aid opportunities, and submitting and tracking college applications. For St. Landry, the FAFSA guide and scholarship search database have been extraordinarily useful for their district to satisfy state standards while expanding awareness of viable funding options for individual students.
Kuder offers a customizable bundle of college access resources that specifically support activities college-bound students must complete, like preparing for the ACT or SAT, learning about financial aid opportunities, and submitting and tracking college applications. For St. Landry, the FAFSA guide and scholarship search database have been extraordinarily useful for their district to satisfy state standards while expanding awareness of viable funding options for individual students.
For the district’s counselors, the Kuder Career Advisor Training: Essentials(tm) course has been a phenomenal way to gain a deeper understanding beyond Kuder’s products alone. The virtual training program provided educators with fundamental background knowledge and insights into the science behind career counseling and its proven methods. The result was an overwhelmingly positive impact on all participants at St. Landry, who are now proud to be certified career advisors.
Students, parents, and administrators belonging to every school within St. Landry Parish greatly enjoy the ease and convenience of our single sign-on capabilities to log into their personal Kuder accounts. This seamless system integration has drastically improved efficiencies in the classroom by eliminating needless frustrations such as forgotten passwords, duplicate accounts, and more to give all students more readily available access to Navigator’s career readiness resources.
Students, parents, and administrators belonging to every school within St. Landry Parish greatly enjoy the ease and convenience of our single sign-on capabilities to log into their personal Kuder accounts. This seamless system integration has drastically improved efficiencies in the classroom by eliminating needless frustrations such as forgotten passwords, duplicate accounts, and more to give all students more readily available access to Navigator’s career readiness resources.
The initial onboarding experience for St. Landry Parish was exceedingly smooth and straightforward. The process began as the district’s counselors, principals, and assistant principals joined Kuder’s trainers for multiple in-person events to dive into Navigator and learn more about its many features and functionalities. In addition, many St. Landry educators have also taken the Kuder Career Advisor Training course to learn more about the “why” behind our system and the extensive research that supports our college and career readiness products. Collectively, these participants were very thankful for the insights shared during their experience in the online course and felt that it added significant value to their implementation strategy for Kuder’s solutions.
Today, the district continues to attend our regularly scheduled webinar trainings to introduce new counselors to the platform and provide a refresher on more detailed processes to existing system administrators. In addition to attending these online events, school staff has frequently utilized Kuder’s support team to answer common questions about the system and set up personalized appointments with their dedicated Partner Solutions Manager.
Navigator continues to be utilized frequently by all 6-12th grade students and counselors at St. Landry Parish, with more than 10,500 log-ins completed since the start of the 2019 academic year. On average, each student user from St. Landry schools has engaged within the system over five times during the 2022-23 academic year as they diligently take and retake the career assessments, create education plans, and expand their financial knowledge in preparation for graduation day.
