College & Career Planning
At SDC, we use a four year scope and sequence to get students thinking about college and careers right away, beginning in 9th grade. To do so, we use the Office of Student Pathways framework of Strong Plan, Head Start, Real Skills.
Strong Plan: Our goal is for each student to graduate with a personalized plan that reflects their personal, educational, and career interests and goals. Students develop and refine their plan over their school journey, through early and regular advising touch points and access to key college and career planning experiences. At SDC, this means that each student will have 1-1 pathways planning session twice each year to identify, explore, and refine their next steps after high school. In the 11th and 12th grades, students are programmed for Internship and College Process classes with our dedicated post secondary counselor who supports students in acquiring and navigating internships as well as the college application process.
Head Start: We work hard to provide students with career-connected learning opportunities that combine classroom learning with meaningful on-the-job work experience and career credentials. Our work-based learning scope and sequence includes hosting guest speakers, job site visits, mentorships, workshops, job shadowing, and paid and unpaid internships. Students in our architecture program also graduate with industry standard certifications in AutoCAD and Revit.
Real Skills: All of these experiences and our comprehensive curriculum teach students the foundational skills they need to succeed in the 21st century, like digital and financial literacy, computational thinking, and computer science skills. Every SDC student will be well equipped to handle the demands of life after high school, no matter what their next step may be.
