Next Career Pathways from IASC supports student career exploration

Claire Peterlin

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Next Career Pathways is an Itasca Area Schools Collaborative (IASC) program. IASC was formed in 2005 as a joint collaborative of seven school districts—Nashwauk-Keewatin, Greenway, Grand Rapids and Bigfork, Deer River, Floodwood, Hill City, and Northland Remer—and Itasca Community College. IASC serves over 8,000 students in the Itasca area. The mission of IASC is to collaborate to most efficiently and effectively to educate all learners and to be the trusted provider of education, promoting economic opportunity and lifelong learning in the Itasca area.

The IASC Career Pathways project began in 2016 thanks to a generous School Collaborative grant from the Minnesota Department of Iron Resources and Rehabilitation. This grant began the design of the collaborative Healthcare and Manufacturing Career Pathways between Nashwauk-Keewatin, Greenway, and Grand Rapids High Schools, and Itasca Community College. In Fall 2019, the program expanded with funding support from The Blandin Foundation and now includes all eight high schools of IASC. In 2020, IASC approved the addition of five new career pathways: Construction, Natural Resources, Education, Business, and Computer Science. The program includes over seventy educators across IASC and Northeastern Minnesota Higher Education District (NHED) college employees and many community agencies and business and industry partners. IASC Next Career Pathways is student-centered workforce development.

The IASC Next Manufacturing Career Pathway supports student exploration and preparation for careers in manufacturing occupations. Core courses include programming such as welding, machine shop technology, Mechatronics, mechanical drafting, sheet-metal occupations, computerized numerical controls (CNC), and engineering and other manufacturing-related courses. Hands on experiences in this pathway include job shadowing with local manufacturing businesses, a student-led manufacturing business courses, and Manufacturing Careers Internships where students can work in paid positions with manufacturing businesses during the school day. The sequence of courses included in the Manufacturing Career Pathway highlights the career opportunities in Manufacturing and helps students understand the skills necessary to be successful in industry.

In Febuary 2021, IASC Next launched its second cohort of manufacturing intern students. Senior manufacturing career pathway students who are 18 years or older the spring semester of their senior year can work in a Manufacturing Career Internship. Interns will be placed with local businesses on paid work experiences. Interns work directly with manufacturing employees and learn valuable skills as future industry professionals. This year, students are on their job site Monday through Thursday from 1 to 3pm although many of them are working extra hours provided by the employer! On Fridays, students report to Mr. Joe Gabardi at Nashwauk-Keewatin, either in person or via online classroom to complete the seminar portion of the class. During seminar students, are able to complete their OSHA10 certification.

Our partners for this internship experience include:

ISCO
L&M Radiator
Midwest Manufacturing
Zakobe
Dakota Fluid Power
Northland Machine
Swan Machine
ASV
Rox Speed FX

As a part of this experience, we have been extra thankful to partner with Harbor Freight Fellows. This program provides our students with a $1000 scholarship after they have completed 120 hours on the worksite and a $250 tool stipend. Harbor Freight Fellows also provides a stipend for the worksite mentor supervising the student and our classroom instructor, Mr. Gabardi.

One Greenway student, working with ASV this spring, shared “the internship program has been amazing! I’ve gotten to know the people at my work site and I’ve learned how to gas weld, use metal bending machines, and much more! Overall, it’s been an awesome experience and I am very happy I was able to take the course as it will help me to have a lot of work experience when I finish high school.”

Kelly Hertling, Human Resources Supervisor at L&M, and her team have been great partners for IASC next. “L&M’s experience with the IASC program has been fantastic! Even as a pilot partner, the process was thoroughly thought out and it had a great flow. The instructor, Joe Gabardi, really made it easy for the students. He helped them with the application process, came with them on their first day, and ensured everyone had what they needed to move forward. Every week, we touched base on the student/employees progress and how they were doing. This is our second year hosting IASC employees. Even with COVID-19, the team was still able to pull together to make this happen. One of the biggest highlights from hosting an IASC student/employee is watching them learn and grow in their trade. To see their progress from when they started to when they ended. The students also gave us valuable feedback, ideas and suggestion from their viewpoints which was essentially priceless. This is truly a great experience being able to partner with these students and grow our area with future talent for everyone."

In addition to the Manufacturing Career Internship class, IASC Next offers a Manufacturing capstone at Grand Rapids High School, E3 Fabrication and Designs, with Mr. Matt Sandys. The course is named after the three E's of IASC Next - Explore, Experience, and Excel. Students in E3 operate an in-school manufacturing business where they design, prototype, market, and sell products. This class teaches manufacturing design processes and trains students in using manufacturing industry equipment and machinery. E3 currently produces custom transducer arms for our outdoor men and women! As a part of this class, our local manufacturing partners have been able to co-teach students and mentor them through both the technical and business sides of manufacturing.

Matt Sandys enjoys teaching the E3 class and shares “E3 Designs manufacturing class is the most real-world class that is possible in a high school setting. Students get the opportunity to pursue multiple skillsets and learn what fits them best. Having the opportunity to design, manufacture and sell customer outdoor gear is a dream class to teach!”

Our program is continuously expanding and improving. Each new student and partner teach us valuable lessons that we implement into our program. If you’d like to partner with us, we’d love to work with you. For more information, please visit www.nextpathways.org or email cpeterlin@isd6070.org or call 218-290-0126.