HCPSSStaff Focus: Grace Dellinger, Career Readiness Advisor
December 4th, 2024
Every day is different for Grace Dellinger, who works at Oakland Mills Middle and High schools. She spends some days helping students with their college applications and lining up community members to speak to students about their careers; and other days she runs informational sessions on different career pathways and collaborates with classroom teachers to build and deliver lessons about emerging career fields.
Dellinger is one of HCPSS’ 13 career readiness advisors (CRAs), who are tasked with assisting middle and high school students in implementing the NextStep Career Readiness Initiative. A collaboration between HCPSS, the Howard County Office of Workforce Development, and Howard Community College (HCC), NextStep aims to engage students in career exploration and readiness activities and enable them to graduate with a well-informed post-high school plan aligned with their career goals.
“As CRAs, part of our role is to help students figure out where they want to go and how they are going to get there,” Dellinger explains.
That work starts by getting students to think about what interests them, where their strengths lie, and building their exposure to—and awareness of—different careers.
CRAs do this using a variety of strategies, Dellinger says.
“We meet one-on-one with students and talk to them about what excites them. We administer tests like the ASVAB, as well as a variety of assessments and inventories available in Naviance, the HCPSS College and Career Readiness platform that gives students a window into their strengths and interests. We host guest speakers who offer students insights into different pathways. We create job shadowing opportunities so students can see, firsthand, [what’s involved in various] careers,” she explains.
At the same time, CRAs help to ensure that students are aware of the career exploration opportunities available to them within HCPSS.
“We encourage students to take advantage of HCPSS’ Career and Technical Education courses and our Career Academies, which help prepare them for college and employment in a number of career areas,” Dellinger notes.
Complementing these efforts, CRAs work with students to develop a plan that will lead them to their career goals.
“We basically look at what their goals are and work backward to see what steps they will need to take to meet them,” Dellinger says. “For some students, that may mean doing an apprenticeship and earning an industry certification; for other students, it may be exploring courses that serve as a foundation for their post-secondary goals.”
CRAs are specifically tasked with elevating students’ awareness and understanding of career options and guiding them toward the option(s) that best align with their skills and interests, and Dellinger says that that work is very much a team effort.
“CRAs work closely with teachers, counselors, and members of Student Services and School Improvement Teams, and the community to ensure that students have multiple layers of support as they prepare for their future.”
CRAs also work closely with career coaches from the Office of Workforce Development, as well as with Howard Community College to provide connections to the current workforce, locally and regionally.
Dellinger also leads the work in collaboration with with HCPSS’ media specialists and other partners to produce a “Monthly Spotlight,” featuring books, hands-on activities and resources that students and families can use to learn about a given career cluster, like health and bioscience, consumer services, or construction and development.
Ultimately, Dellinger says, she says she and her fellow CRAs have a common goal: to ensure students leave HCPSS with a plan and hope for their future.
“No matter what career they choose to pursue, we want them to understand what it entails and the multiple pathways available for them to get there.”