District expands School Links career program; career fair set for March 2, 2026

Caitlin Nelson, the district’s career development facilitator, briefed the Dexter Community School District Board of Education on Oct. 20 about an expanded college and career readiness initiative that uses the School Links platform and that extends programming into grades K–12.

Nelson said the dashboard shows engagement from Sept. 9, 2024 through Oct. 14, 2025: nearly 16,000 student logins and more than 1,700 unique students accessing the system. She reported that 818 students had set a postsecondary goal and 1,016 students had identified a career in the system. Nelson said the top postsecondary preference among 9th–12th graders was a four‑year degree, followed by two‑year degrees, with medicine, business management, law, engineering and animal/veterinary science prominent among identified career interests.

Nelson described how the district is integrating younger students into the system: fifth and sixth graders rotate through careers and technology every five weeks and complete an age‑appropriate interest inventory that focuses on strengths and hobbies. She said those early experiences are intended to build vocabulary and allow students to revise goals across time.

Career fair and program enhancements Nelson said the district will host a large career fair on Monday, March 2, 2026. The student experience will be similar to the prior year: students will attend three 30‑minute sessions and select sessions based on career‑cluster preferences. Enhancements planned for 2026 include centralized check‑in at the CPA to reduce bottlenecks, clear signage, trained student ambassadors to guide attendees, more detailed presenter biographies so students can choose sessions with better context, and specialty panels (for example, separate panels for nursing specialties, legal careers and military branches).

Nelson and board members discussed logistics. She said, based on last year’s feedback, panels will free up rooms that previously had uneven capacity and AV limitations; the district intends to host roughly 80–90 guest speakers in spaces designed to reduce bottlenecks and increase representative coverage of trades and other career clusters.

Why it matters: the School Links platform gives the district a data‑driven way to shape advisory content, electives and guest‑speaker recruitment so programming aligns with student interests. Nelson said staff will use the aggregated data to guide future course offerings and employer/partner outreach.

Provenance Topic intro: Oct. 20, 2025, 00:09:15 (presentation begins) Topic finish: Oct. 20, 2025, 00:20:19 (career fair and enhancements concluded)