Dexter Community School District rolls out School Links for 7th–12th graders; career fair set for March 10

Caitlin Austin, the Dexter Community School District career development facilitator, told the board at a public meeting that the district is implementing a new college- and career-planning platform called School Links for students in grades 7 through 12.

"My name is Caitlin Austin. I am your career development facilitator, and I appreciate the opportunity to present and discuss to you how we are modernizing and strengthening our college and career readiness program for our students," Austin said as she described the platform and rollout plan.

School Links provides students with assessments and interest inventories, a personalized dashboard and news feed, a college and career search drawn from national labor data, scholarship matching, and a resume export feature. Austin said the platform supports the state EDP (education development plan) process that begins in 7th grade and that 9th–12th graders will be a primary focus this school year. "We currently have 97% of our 9th or 12th graders actively using this platform," she told the board.

Austin described the platform's "find your path" assessment (a personality-style inventory tied to career clusters), the career profile pages that pull Bureau of Labor Statistics data on job growth and median salaries, and the college center with filters for school type, size, admissions data and virtual campus tours. She said School Links can match seniors to scholarships and export student profiles into a resume Word document.

The district plans a half-day career fair on March 10 in which students will rotate through three presentations. Austin said 187 responses to the speaker signup form have been received and that the fair's goals are to (1) expose students to a variety of careers, (2) link speakers to the Dexter learner profile and show how workplace competencies map to school skills, and (3) create networking opportunities that could lead to job shadows, internships and work experiences. All post-event opportunities will be routed through Austin and posted in School Links’ opportunity management area for students to apply.

Counseling staff and special-education teams are using School Links in individual education program (IEP) meetings and for counselor advisement. Austin said the district is structuring EDP updates so that students in grades 9–12 revisit and update their plans at least three times this school year; seniors will need to submit their EDP before graduation. She also noted that alumni retain access to School Links after graduation for continued networking.

Students and parents in public comment and question periods urged clear, targeted communication and feature highlights. One student commenter said, "I think highlighting those features would be great for students," noting the platform felt large and that focusing on scholarships, virtual tours and the game-like financial planning module would help peers engage earlier.

Austin acknowledged continuing work on back-end course mappings so School Links can suggest which high-school courses best align with particular career pathways and college preparation. She described that work as ongoing and said district staff will continue to collect requested platform features for the vendor to consider at a year-end review.

Board and staff next steps include finalizing career-fair logistics, targeted family/guardian meetings after the fair to support onboarding, and continuing data uploads (district acceptance rates and course mappings) to make School Links more tailored to Dexter students.

Ending: The presentation ran through examples of student dashboards and career profiles and concluded with Austin thanking trustees for their support and inviting questions. The board scheduled follow-up items on career-fair planning and continued technical work with the vendor.