The Thomasville City Schools District has been recognized by the Alabama Career Planning System as the top district in the State of Alabama with the highest percentage of career assessments for students so far in the 2023-2024 school year.
The Kuder company of Adel, Iowa, provides software for the state Planning System and the Alabama Department of Education.
Students in sixth through 12th grades complete a career interest assessment, a skills confidence assessment, and a work values inventory, said Kay Larrimore, Career Coach for Thomasville City Schools.
On the career interest assessment, students are given a series of questions to gauge their interest in different career clusters (or groups of occupations with similar features). They must rate their interest from 1 to 5. Overall career clusters can include “education and training,” “human services,” “health science,” “law, public safety and security,” and “arts, audio and video technology and communication.”
One student might pick “therapeutic services” as their number one career cluster. The Kuder software will list all the occupations that are available under that cluster, Larrimore said. The software also highlights which jobs are most sought after and shows how much they would be paid.
Determining skills confidence or aptitude, students are asked if they have the particular skills for the particular career paths they are interested in.
The work values inventory explores issues such as “what means the most to you? How much you make or how happy you are? Do you work well with others?”
Utilizing the Kuder software in groups and from one-on-one sessions with individual students, Larrimore as the Career Coach works to discover the career path students are interested in. Once a student finds a career of interest, Larrimore also matches the career interest on a website, “mynextmove.org.”
Starting with the eighth grade, Larrimore and school counselors Tammy Brasell (Thomasville Middle School) and Joyce Figgers (Thomasville High School) work to tailor course schedules to complement the student’s career interests. Career interests can change from year-to-year. Parents are encouraged to have their student’s show them the career education plan developed at school, Larrimore said.
Larrimore is in her 18th year teaching in Thomasville City Schools. She previously served as the Work-Based Learning Coordinator and Business Information Technology Instructor, before becoming the Career Coach. It is a blessing, she said, that Thomasville City Schools has such comprehensive career planning software to help students plan their careers. This program has been in place in the schools for the past 10 years.
(Photo - THS students pictured in Career Prep class.)