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District expands college-and-career counseling; junior-high pathway alignment jumps 46%
Summary
Ogden School District presented year-two results from its PCCR counseling program and YouScience implementation, reporting districtwide gains in pathway alignment and course planning, with junior highs showing a 46% increase in 9th-graders on track for chosen pathways.
Heather Gerard, executive director of personalized pathways, told the board the district's Plan for College and Career Readiness (PCCR) begins in sixth grade and stitches together classroom lessons, counselor meetings, YouScience assessments and a student-owned portfolio to produce a four-year plan that follows the student into Infinite Campus.
The district has refined lesson-plan templates and added a data-project focus. "A PCCR is the plan for college and career readiness," Gerard said, describing how counselors flag students in Infinite Campus so the district can monitor who is on track to complete a chosen pathway. Counselors use the flagging to pull live reports and target interventions for students who are off-track.
Gerard said high-school students on track to complete a pathway rose from 17% to 27% after the initial round of PCCR lessons. She said OTEC saw an increase in students completing industry certifications (from about 15% to 23%) and that junior-high implementation led to a 46% increase in ninth-graders whose four-year plans now align with their selected pathways and course schedules.
The presentation emphasized equity-focused next steps: the counseling team will disaggregate data to check outcomes for multilingual learners and special-education populations and identify gaps that require targeted supports. Gerard said counselors also are working with teachers and work-based-learning coordinators to bring industry experiences into classrooms and to ensure outreach matches the district's student demographics.
Board members praised the counselors' work and the data-driven approach. One board member noted early lessons for counselors: "It's okay if a student doesn't want to choose a pathway yet," Gerard said, explaining that the process is revisited annually so students aren't locked into choices prematurely.
The district plans summer convenings with counselors to review feedback, refine lesson plans and prepare for the ninth-grade YouScience rollout. Gerard said the Utah State Board of Education will review the district's guidance next year as part of a compliance visit; the district has also presented its approach at counselor conferences and hosted visiting teams from other districts.
For now, the board directed staff to continue implementation, collect parent and student survey data to broaden feedback, and prepare disaggregated outcome reports for upcoming committee meetings.
