001All right. Thank you. And All right. So, for our training this evening or for our session, um we're going to take a look at uh what amazing features your students have access to within the platform. And then we're also going to take a look at what features you have access to within Schoolings. Um, with the recording, you will also receive a copy of this presentation which includes additional resources here on the right hand side to uh further enhance or help you as you're supporting your students with this platform. Uh, so getting started um maybe this is your first time hearing of School Links and so uh to kind of bring you up to speed at the high level bird's eye view uh school links is a true all-in-one uh student success platform. Uh within school
002links we have over 100 different experiences for both stu sorry for students staff and families. Um we help students move from exploration all the way through the application process for different priorities and initiatives. Whether students looking into college, career, military, uh or other options, we have the resources within school links to help and support them along the way. So let's take a look at a few things that students can do. The first thing that we need to talk about is how does my student get access to the platform. So for students uh they should by now uh have access to what's called the my access APS portal. Uh this is where they access many of their different applications including school links. And so um if a student has had issues trying to get into the
003platform they can reach out to uh their counselor to get help and support to get access to school links. The information within school links is updated nightly. So um as information changes or perhaps if your student changes from one building to the other uh that information will be reflected in the platform overnight. All righty. So from the very beginning the very first thing that your students will experience is called an onboarding process. Your students first time logging into school links they're going to see this screen here that will prompt them to complete onboarding. The onboarding process is a uh four-step process where they initially will complete what's called a find your path assessment where they will simply read a statement and if they agree with the statement uh they can swipe to the right or
004click the green check or if they disagree they can swipe to the left or click the red X. And as a result of completing the find your path assessment, students will learn uh some interesting information about themselves, their key character traits, their top career cluster matches, and their celebrity matches. Students then are able to uh take action with information that they've just learned about themselves through the assessment. So here I can click next at the bottom and based on how I answered in find your path, I'm then able to select my top career cluster match, my top career within that cluster that's been recommended to me. And then based on the career that I select, I can select and identify a major training program. So then in just a few minutes, uh students will have
005completed the assessment, gone through the onboarding process, and they have at least a baseline of information to help with their exploration within schoolings. So here I have the results of my find your path assessment. On the lefth hand side, I've set an initial career goal and I've also set an initial major and training goal. Now, these goals are not set in stone for your students. As they're working with the amazing staff within the district, um they're going to change their mind and get more information. So, there's several places within the platform that allows for them to make those changes. Once I've completed my onboarding process, I can click on go to dashboard at the bottom. And then this will take me to my student dashboard from the student side. From here, students can explore and
006look at their to-do list of activities that need to be completed. They can take a look at their student newsfeed to see what uh mentor opportunities, uh scholarships are available, as well as any other key information from colleges or other um careers of interest within school links. Students also have the opportunity to take a number of different assessments. Uh students have the opportunity to take a number of different assessments that will further enhance uh their knowledge about their personalities, their interests and mo motivations and also their learning styles. Within the platform, students also have the opportunity to set and achieve and also track any of their goals. So, as a part of onboarding, we already set and establish our career goal and also our major and training goal. But throughout school links, there's opportunities to
007update, add, and reflect on my post-secary goal as well as my college goal. Within School Links to help students along the way with their post-secary preparation journey, uh we do have several lessons available in what's called our learning hub. These lessons are revolving around uh several different college and readiness topics including uh self-discovery, um how to have key employability skills, preparing for a two-year versus a 4-year college or university. And these are nice uh activities that students can complete on their own um at their own pace. Now, as your students are setting goals and they're making decisions within the platform, they have full access to what's called the game of life. So, here within school links, I can go to where it says explore and then go to what's called the game of life. I
008can click on start a new scenario and then school links will automatically pull in some of the goals that I've already set such as my career path. I can select my desired degree, establish an education goal, and as I'm adding information here on the lefth hand side, my overall financial outlook will update on the right. And this is where I can do um uh this is where I can test some of my thinking um about some of my goals that I've set. Students can also make fun decisions about their lifestyles, pets they may own, um technology they may have down the road. And again, as I make these decisions on the left, it'll update my financial outlook on the right. Now again, this is not a financial adviser. This is meant to be more of
009a gamified environment for students to test their thinking and see how their choices will impact their future. Within schools, we have a very robust career center where students can explore a variety of different careers um in alignment with their interests. within the career center. By default, when students first come to this page, they're going to see the most job openings with the bachelor's degree required in your specific state. Any of the listed careers are clickable, and it will take students to what's called a career profile where they can learn more about the career, watch videos from industry partners that are actually working in that specific career field. They can also identify uh the education and training requirements, complete career Q&A for our industry partners and mentors and also look at the overall career outlook for
010careers of interest. As a student, as I'm learning about these different careers, I may want to go back to them later. So, I have the ability here to go in and favorite the careers and also set them as a goal. helping students move from uh exploration into application. Here at the bottom we have what's called related opportunities or under career sorry under our engage section we have our opportunity board where students can learn about real world opportunities that they can participate in um where they can go and volunteer um intern or even start their first actual job application. So within this part of the platform, students can um filter by a number of different requirements or opportunity types. And in here they have direct links to look at uh volunteer opportunities, internships and apprenticeships or
011even actual employment. All right. In addition to a very robust career center, we have a very uh strong uh college and school search feature that allows students to explore colleges and universities as well as key uh programs and majors that might be of interest to them. So here we can go to college and go to school search and within this page students are going to see all the different colleges both public and private within your within their specific state. Students have a number of different filters that they can apply and or remove to see an even larger list of schools or colleges within the platform. Students can use the uh search bar here at the top to look for a specific major or training program. And we intentionally call this a school search because this
012is not only limited to a 2-year or four-year college, but this can also include uh certification programs and trade schools. Using the filters here at the top, students can look for uh schools based on the degrees that are offered, the campus makeup and size, admission requirements, acceptance requirements, sporting programs that are offered, and then the off the overall degree types that are offered as well. Students can also search for schools that have a virtual reality tour included or schools in which a counselor from the district has left a note or a comment. As students are exploring each school down here on the lefth hand side, they have what's called a school card that will allow them to um one look at key scatteragramgram data and outcomes. And this will help inform our decisions for schools
013of interest. They can view the acceptance by GPA and overall application history for certain schools and colleges based on their individual school data or the overall district data. Similar to our career side, if students are exploring, they can click on this heart icon to favorite a school and they can indicate why that school was interesting or a favorite for them. As I'm exploring, I have the ability to build out my favorites and lists. I can also learn more about each specific school or college by clicking on a link or the school profile card. And from this page, I can dive in and learn more about the general overview of the school campus, student body information, programs that are offered, athletics. I can also take a quick look at the overall cost and financial aid with
014a direct link to the financial aid website for that particular school or college. I also have the ability to take a look at key admission stats and because the district will provide uh student GPA information to schools, students will automatically be sorted into different categories for their specific schools of interest. Within the school profile, students are also able to look at the different application methods, deadlines, and checklist requirements for each college individually. And as it is with many of our features in the platform, students can favorite and also set as a goal here in the top rightand corner. And as I'm exploring, I can also create my own curated list of colleges or schools of interest. Great. So, in addition to uh searching for schools and colleges, students also have the ability to get matched
015with scholarships using our scholarship match uh feature. There's a simple three-step process that students will need to complete before using the scholarship match feature. Uh, first they're going to have to add their eligibility. They'll fill out their colleges section and then they'll also add any information about their interests. And once they've done that, we will automatically match them up with scholarships based on the dollar amount and the match likelihood for each of these scholarships. Now, quick segue for our seniors or perhaps our early grads using the college application manager. helping students move from exploration into application. We allow for students uh to pull from any of the lists they've already created, whether it's all the schools and colleges that I favored, maybe I built out a final list, or maybe I just built out a
016list of schools or colleges of interest. When I'm in the college application manager or the college section of school links, I'm able to narrow down my list of schools and compare college admission stats. From uh the college admission stats tab within school links, I'm able to compare the GPA amongst test scores uh sorry test scores for my schools of interest. And then I can see for all the schools that I've either favor favored, set as a goal, or perhaps are even applying to. I can take a look and compare to see how I stack up for these different colleges. Generally, we have a lot of juniors that will complete what's called the building a final list activity. And so, when a student builds a final list, this gives them an opportunity to set their intentions
017for the colleges they're actually going to apply to in the fall. Within the final list, we have a guaranteed column which will surface and show any of the colleges that have a guaranteed or open admissions policy as well as some of the colleges that have a rule-based policy such as a GPA or test score requirement. Then we also have a likely target and reach category for students to automatically sort their different colleges of interest to build out what we call a balanced final list. Within School Links, we offer an abundance of tools to help students manage their overall college application process. Within the platform for our seniors, we have what's called the college application manager where they will initially set up their account or sorry, they'll initially set up their college application manager page where
018they'll go in and add in their personal details. They'll indicate if they qualify for any fee wavers and then they'll fill out their school links related furpa. Once the student has completed their steps, the college application manager opens up for them and they can begin adding colleges for their application process. Within college application manager, students can uh manage all their different requirements. They can request application materials electronically. They can also report the outcomes and the results of their college applications as well as indicating their plans for enrollment in the fall of the following year. As students set up each application within schoolings to track their requirements and automatically request the documents that are needed for their application, uh students can indicate and choose how they're applying, whether it's going to be through Common App, the
019actual school's application process, or other options. They'll indicate the application type, whether it's a regular decision, early action, or perhaps even some schools with a rolling deadline. And then to help students stay on track for all of their college applications, they can indicate any other requirements they're going to send with their college application. This can include completing financial aid, sending and submitting test scores, or other items that the student needs to do along with submitting their college application. Once a student has set up their college application um for their school of interest, they'll have a student checklist here on the lefth hand side. And this is where they will manage their to-do list for that particular college. So some items on the checklist will include submitting their application and then anything else that they've added
020that they're going to keep track of and manage. In the center column, students have a section where they can request and track their teacher recommendations. And then based on the school and the requirements for that particular school or college, the uh counselor documents that get fulfilled are automatically requested when a school when a student indicates that they're applying to a certain school. Once students have requested their letter of recommendation, they have a built-in recommendation letter tracker. So that way they can keep track of the statuses of all their letters of recommendation as well as where they're at in the process for getting those fulfilled by their teachers. We do have an integration with Common App. So as students are submitting their application documents through Common App, all of the requests for teachers letters of recommendation
021for transcripts, school reports, all that information will be sent via school links um by the students counselors and teachers. to get set up on the common app connection. Uh when students are on the college application manager page, in the bottom left hand side, there is a button here to link their common app account. And then they'll have a guided set of steps that they'll need to complete to ensure that the communication is happening with Common App and School Links. Once the student has successfully connected their CommonApp account, they will then be able to request their uh documents and teacher evaluations for each application. Then from there they'll complete their applications in common app and then they'll come back into school links to report their enrollment decisions and the outcomes of their applications from the student
022perspective for their in network applications. So non-common app the students will manually indicate and check when they have completed items on their checklist. For our common app applications because we have an integration with the other platform uh as a student submits their application in common app it will automatically check off in school links on their submit application step for the student checklist. As students hear back from their colleges about their um results and their application within school links, they can go in and add the result of their application, whether they were accepted, denied, weight listed, deferred, or withdrawn. The benefit to this is it creates scattergram or historical data for future students that are applying in Arlington public schools. And then once a student indicates that they have been accepted to a college or university,
023we will then push them to our um college financing tools where they can upload a copy of their award letter. So if they received a scholarship or any financing for college, they can add a copy of their award letter and then fill out a form that indicates how much they're going to receive for that particular scholarship. So, as they're making their um decisions about the college of enrollment, they'll be able to compare the overall cost for every college. Then, as students add their um application outcomes, uh they they're going to be populating that scatteragramgram for future students that are going to be using College Application Manager down the road. All right. And so here's just a quick overview of what that college financing uh tool would look like. So in this example here, uh student
024indicates that they got accepted to Southern Methodist University, and then it will guide them through each of the steps here to upload a copy of their award letter. And then they can indicate how much they've received for gift aid. What is the overall cost of attendance? Then as an output in school links, we'll give them the overall cost breakdown for attending this college or university. As we get into the spring part of the school year, one of the most important steps for our seniors to complete is adding in their enrollment decision. The enrollment decision one lets uh the district and also the school and also the counselor know where the student plans to go in the fall of the following year. In addition to that, it automatically generates that final transcript request so that the
025students transcripts can be sent to the right college or university. All right. And then for transcripts that are not maybe not necessarily for a college application in School Links, we do offer the ability for students to request a copy of their unofficial transcript or they can request for an official transcript to be sent for things like NCAA eligibility, particular scholarships, um or perhaps for employment if needed. All right. So, we talked a lot about what the students can do in schoolings, but now let's talk about you as a parent or guardian. Um, what you have access to and how you can help and support your student. All right, so this is probably the piece that everyone is online waiting for is how do I get into school links? How can I see this information? Um,
026and how can I help and support my student? If you are logging in for the very first time, what you're going to do is go to app.schools.com. schoolinks.com and the school district has already provided your contact or your email address to have your account waiting for you. If the email address that you have on file with your with your child's uh school or within the school district uh is a Google email address, then when you get to this website here, you can select the log in with Google option and then you'll log in with your personal Google uh email account. If the email address that you have on file with the district or with the school is not a Google email, then what you're going to do is click on forgot password at the very
027bottom on the login page. And then you'll type in your email address again. And this has to be the same email that you have on file with the school district. And then you'll click reset password. And then school links will send you an email in just a few minutes. So that way you can go ahead and set your password and get access into the platform. Within this presentation, you will have an you'll have access to a link that walks you through the same process that I just mentioned to ensure that you get access into school links. If you have any issues getting access with getting access uh into school links or getting access to the platform, uh please make sure that you work with your uh your child's school counselor to help and support and
028get the uh information updated in the student information system. All right. So, there is a lot that you can do once you get access to school links and once you're able to log in. And the very first thing we would recommend is to explore your guardian dashboard. So, bear with me for one second. I'm going to switch environments so we can take a look at what parents and guardians generally see within the platform. All righty. So, first and foremost, um when you first get into your parent or guardian account, on the left hand side, you have access to a few of the features that your students also have access to. Uh, for example, if you wanted to look at any of the um specific colleges or schools that are available in the platform, you can
029go to college and go to school search and see the exact same list of schools that your students see. You also have access to the career center. So, you can take a look at all of the different careers um that are available to your students as well. And you can see that same information from your account throughout the school year. Once you've gained access, you will also want to check your to-do list. We have specific items for parents and guardians to complete while they're in the platform. And all you need to do is click on the link and it will take you directly to the page that you'll need to go to complete that to-do or action item. Okay. Within school links, uh parent and guardians are not just parents and guardians, but you are
030also perhaps a an employee at an a company or organization. Perhaps you're also an alumni at one of the schools in the district. And so down here at the bottom, you do have the opportunity to add your affiliation for specific work or career fields or colleges. And then here in the bottom right hand corner, you can also add your historical or your past high school to connect to the alumni network within the platform. All righty. So now at the very top of your screen once you've gained access and you've explored some of the tools that are uh in here for you uh to see your students information within the platform or within school links, what you'll need to do is go to the my students tab and then you'll find the student that you would
031want to uh view and see their what's called a case file. All right. So, within the students case file, there is an abundance of information that you can access and take a look at. By default, when you first come to this page, you're going to see what's called the students to-do list. These are the district and or uh building level priorities for your student. And this is their curated list of things that they need to accomplish while in schoolings. This could include completing certain lessons, setting up the college application manager, exploring certain colleges or other activities that will help and enhance their overall experience within schoolings. From the students case file, you can also take a look and see any of the to-dos that are assigned to you as a parent or guardian. Under the
032to-do list, you also have access to what's called the events tab, where you can see any of the events for which your student is eligible to attend or that they've already signed up for. And then under the reminders tab, under the students to-do list, this is where you can see all of your students upcoming reminders. This can be for meetings with their counselor, upcoming deadlines for college applications, or even upcoming deadlines for um specific uh scholarship applications as well. And you as a parent or guardian, you have access to this full 360 view just from the student's to-do list. If you're interested in seeing other pieces of information that are available in your students case file, then here at the very top, just below where it says my students, you can go here to where
033it says case file section. And now you can go in and explore other sections of school links that your student has access to. So, for example, if your student completed that onboarding assessment or the find your path and you wanted to see how they answered or what careers they might be interested in, I can go to the assessment section. I'll take a second here and then I can see how the student has answered on their most recent Find Your Path assessment and view historical assessments that they've already um completed. If I'm interested in seeing any of my um students learning chapters or lessons that they've completed, I can go here to the learning chapter section and see what lessons or units my student has explored. And then perhaps when they get home, I can uh
034quiz them on some of the things that they should have learned. All right. There are other features that later in the school year we'll receive information about such as course planning and also what's called a personalized plan. And then if you also want to take a look at the um test score, student GPA information for your particular student under accountability and performance, you can take a look at student performance and see the uploaded data from your student's district or school. Now earlier we talked about the student side where they can apply to colleges, they can build out their own favorite list. Um, but for you as a parent and guardian, for your students that are seniors, you can go under this college section and you can view the students college lists and favorites. In the
035college list and favorites, at the very top, you'll have a breakdown of the students final list schools. So, these are the schools that the student has set an intention for. This will be the students uh list of schools that they're interested in, any schools that they have favored, and then if they favored a major or training program, you'll see that list here at the top. Okay? Starting with this year's juniors, they'll begin the process of building out what's called a final list. And so you'll be able to see that information in school links as well as any schools that have moved from their final list to actually being an application in the fall. You can also add and view any of the comments that have been left by the students and or the parent or
036sorry by the uh counselor um within the student's case file. As we continue scrolling down here within the college list and favorites tab of the student's case file, let's say you have that list of schools or colleges you want your student to see while they're in schoolings. Under the guardian list section, you can type in the name of the school and then add it so that your student sees it in their list of schools as they're viewing admission stats or other uh college applications. And then if the student's counselor has built out their own list for the student to view, you'll be able to see that information here. And then you can also see all of the lists that your student has built on their own. And then down here at the very bottom, these
037are going to be the students favorite schools and programs. And if a student has left a note on their specific program or use one of our tags, you'll be able to see that information as well. All right, going back to the case file section under the college admission stats. In the same way that a student can go in and view their college admission stats for themselves, you can go in and look at college admission stats based on your students test score data and GPA information. or you could simulate um the student's test score and GPA data to have conversations with them about um if you had this test score and this GPA, here's where you would stack up for certain colleges. All right, a few additional things that you're able to do within the uh
038case file sections here. You can take a look at the career exploration. So you can see uh what careers your student has shown interest in. You can see their goal career as well as the careers that they have favored and the specific career clusters that they're showing the most interest in across the careers that they have favored. All right. Now, under the student activities tab here in the case file section, you can also go to where it says events and reminders. And this is where you come into the picture. Earlier, we talked about how you can view your students events and the ones that they registered for. But from time to time there may be an event for which you as a parent and guardian can participate in that's been set up in schoolings. So
039under the guardian events tab you can register and sign up for an event and you'll get automated emails and reminders as we get closer to that event. All right coming out of the case file section for just a second. Every student within School Links has what's called a student profile. The student profile serves as a built-in resumeé builder that captures a 360 view of the student's experience and the things that they're proud of. To access this in the top lefth hand side where your student's name is listed, you can click on this little icon here and it will take you into the student's profile. And within the student profile, this is where you can see any information that the student has added. So if they've added their objective, their headline here, their experience, whether it's
040job, internship, or volunteering, I can see the extracurricular activities that they participated in, anything that they're bragging on themselves about, such as uh key awards that they may have earned, skills, languages that they speak, and if the district or if your child's uh school is taking advantage of the portfolio feature, you'll be able to view those portfolio uploads as Within the student's profile, you do also have the ability to make a comment on anything that you may have found of interest or areas in which you would want to call attention to. All right. And the last thing I want to highlight for the parent and guardian part of our platform is from time to time your child's district or your child's counselor um or other staff members in the district may be using what's called
041an announcement. So here in the top right hand corner if we click on the announcements this is where um a staff member from APS has sent out a blast or a message that they would want parents and guardians to be uh familiar with or connected to. These can be announcements about upcoming deadlines uh activities that may need to be complete and uh you can view those for any of the ones that you've been um any of the announcements that have been shared with you by clicking on your announcement icon in the top right hand corner. You have two tabs here on the lefth hand side for both current and past announcements. And then for each announcement that gets posted on the right hand side you can click on the three dots to pin an announcement.
042So that way maybe it's something important you want to come back to it later. Uh you can pin it and if you need to message or contact the poster of that announcement such as the student's counselor you can use this message message message poster option. All right. Now being a parent myself uh sometimes it's a little bit easier for me to get reminded about things like announcements as I'm moving if I have uh this information being blasted to my cell phone. Uh so here in the top right hand corner you can click on the settings icon. Go to account settings and then under the notifications section. This is where you can turn on and enable SMS text alerts. So again, if you're like me and you prefer just to get a quick text when things
043are uh needing your attention, perhaps in school links or in the platform, uh you can set this up, add a mobile number, and then turn this on so that way you get reminded via text um rather than just via email. All righty. So, I'm going to jump over to Q&A in just a second, but you received a lot of information and you might still be curious about certain features, how they work, and how you can get further support down the road with School Links as you're exploring on your own. There's a couple of things that you can use to get that support. In the bottom right hand corner, no matter what page you're on, you can click on this chat icon and then you can click on ask a question. When you click on ask
044a question, it will open up our AI chatbot window that will pull from all of our help center articles and knowledge base within the platform and you can ask any question about school links um to get an answer. If you don't get the answer that you're looking for, you can always type in talk to a person and then this will connect you to our live support team during regular business hours. And if you prefer to just research the articles on your own, in the top right hand corner, you can click on this question mark here. And this is going to take you to what's called the help center. Within the help center, we have several different articles about how the different features in school links work um applicable to your specific access. All right. And
045then as we're uh using schooling so we're launching into it for the first time uh if you have questions uh feel free to connect with your uh child school counselor um or also use the help support resources within the platform. All right. So with that see we have quite a few questions. All righty. So the first one what sort of privacy settings does schoolings have? There's a lot of information. Um, so we do have very protected privacy policies and what we can use and share here. May I have this wrong here, but I'll drop this in the chat so you can take a look. There we go. and the answer. I'll put this in the chat for you. Okay. So, yeah, school links does have a very robust industry, very robust, industryleading uh privacy policy.
046Um, so all the information that is within our platform is only accessible by the district. Um, and then schools itself to make recommendations for careers. Um, but any other information that is submitted, we do not share out. Um, the information is protected within the platform. It's a great question. Appreciate you asking that one. Okay. Um saw another question here about uh importing historical data. Um that has actually already happened. So we have imported I believe eight years worth of data from uh your students prior platform Naviance and uh that is available within their scattergrams for students to be able to view. Oh and of course Rosanna happy to help. You'll have to forgive me. I'm getting used to the Q&A section over here. All righty. So yeah, if uh parents and guardians, we do have
047a few minutes left here. If y'all have additional questions, please feel free to use the chat or not chat, um use the Q&A section and I'll be happy to get those answered for you. All right, question is, uh, is this being recorded? Absolutely. Yes. Um, so you'll get access to the recording, um, a copy of the slide deck presentation that I'm using, as well as a couple of one-pagers and documents, um, that'll give you like just the information that you need for how to access the platform. >> I can answer that, Michael. >> Yeah, go ahead. So currently the platform has been rolled out um and made accessible to all students in grades 6 through 12. It's actually a K through 12 platform, but we've held off on the elementary component until the second half
048of this year. But there's truly meaningful activities that any student can do in the platform to learn about themselves, opportunities um available to them, what path they might like to pursue um at any point. So freshman year is absolutely not too early to start using utilizing the platform. We set a goal for the school district that all uh middle and high school students would at least have logged on and done that onboarding process Michael talked about in the very beginning that brief kind of find your path survey and then uh funneling down through you know selecting at this at this moment in time you know what is a career p cluster pathway that interests them those kind of things. Um actually by tomorrow that was our goal. We've actually I think we're around 65% districtwide.
049So many of your students have probably logged on in school. Um they can do it from home as well, but um they've been doing it in their advisory classes or um TA uh periods in school. So not too early and they're welcome to access it anytime um at school or at home on their phone anytime. I think that also answered the second question is freshman uh should freshman start or wait until junior year. So I'm going to go ahead and mark that one. Um and then what are the office if you wanted to talk to a live person? Um so for school in related questions um we have the support chat that's available to you if you have questions like how the platform works. But for everything else um you can work with the with
050your child or students school counselor. Um each school has been trained on school links and how to use it. And so that would be your your in-person option to get help and support. Yes, Kim, I'm actually going to use this as an opportunity to show you this live in the platform. Um, but the question was, can how can students explore opportunities in trades? So, let me show you here. There's a couple of options. Make sure I'm sharing the right screen. I am. Cool. Um, so within the um there's a couple different ways to do it. If we go to the college section and go to school search from the student account, let's say um college or university, not necessarily my jam. That's not the direction I'm heading. Um, what I can do here is in
051the search bar, let's say I'm just hyper interested in welding, like that is where I, you know, want to devote my time. Um, I can type welding here in the search bar and then this little diploma icon will show me um the welding and um, sorry, the welding technology and welder program. And then here, anything that says uh, certificates will be those uh, trade school or certificate programs. And then a lot of these will be offered at a community college. Um but sometimes it might be like a specific institute that offers these programs and then students can click directly on that page to learn more about that specific um school that offers specific trade programs. In addition to that, you have uh under engage, we have the opportunity board where students can learn about uh
052internships, volunteering, or even actual long-term employment opportunities and actually go directly to that page to sign up for these. Um, and your district is doing a really good job of keeping this populated with district specific information. And then we also as a partner with your district provide opportunities as well. So Kim, that was a great question. I'll just also say that our um CTE department is also utilizing school links. There's a workbased learning um component or these types of uh opportunities for students to engage in and um our CTE uh teachers have been trained in schools and are working with students to know that know about the opportunities that are available to them um for internships in the trades while they're in high school. Oh, and Lyn Lucas, uh, CT, career and technical education. >>
053So, sorry about that. >> Yeah. >> All right. Um, oh, another great Lucas, you're on honor with these great questions today. Uh, so the next one, uh, after graduation, does a student have access to school links? And the answer is yes. So, once a student graduates, um, let me backtrack a little bit. At the very end of the year, um, students have what's called a senior year-end activity for our seniors. And I believe this is already set up on their to-do list. I'm just going to double check. Boom. So, um, and looks like May 15th as a due date, but all seniors have what's called a senior year end activity. Um, this is where your students will provide the information that's necessary in schools to keep and retain their schoolings account. because uh Arlington Public
054Schools has partnered with us for school links, your students now indefinitely have access to school links from now until forever. Um and we intentionally do this so that way as they're launching into their post-secary journey, they have access to that profile, their resume, experiences, um all that information and rich data that they were working on while they were in the district, but now they have their own curated access and they can still explore colleges and careers and things like that through the platform. No problem. All right. And then Nermita, uh, the database of colleges and universities is so helpful. Thank you for that wonderful feedback. Uh, do the statistical data for each school come from the school and updated each year? Um, yeah, Tyler, you're beating me to it. Yeah. So, uh, if we're talking
055about the schools in terms of, um, like historical application data, yes, that's updated each year. That's coming from either student self-reporting, counselors reporting, um, and then district uploaded data. So, there's that part like the actual school and the district. But then, uh, in terms of like the colleges, we use a national source called iPads and it's the international no can't remember. It's interp secondary database where essentially this is where colleges report all of their information each year um or every other year I believe and so we pull from that database but to ensure that the information reflected in schoolings is most up-to-date and accurate um we also audit the colleges on our side and then also if there's anything that looks off whether it's the deadlines or things like that uh counselors as well as
056school staff um can reach out to us directly and we can make updates live in the platform. I think Heather may have had an additional answer to add there. No, I'll get >> I just thought it would be helpful to also type it out in case we have some more visual um learners on the call. >> Absolutely. Okay, next one. Will school links provide NOVA enrollment requirements? >> Yes, it'll have it in there. I just need to I feel bad not knowing specifically which college is NOVA. >> Oh, Heather, you're holding against him, but Michael is not from Virginia, so he's in Texas, but that's okay. Um, yes, the NOVA requirements will be in there if they're not already. Your college and career counselors at your schools and um at our district at the district
057level, we have a college and career counselor as well has been working on ensuring that all of those local requirements or opportunities um are updated. If you notice anything that's arrived while you're searching, also please reach out. That does happen sometimes. Um a school may all of a sudden become testing optional and it may not get updated. So, we are we um that's happened once so far this fall where we had um a counselor and a student like point something out and we let school links know and they confirmed it with the college and then updated in the platform. So, if if we do find anything that doesn't seem quite right, you know, please feel free to reach out to um school links and Michael will ending this with showing you um or providing you
058with some contact information or you can reach out to myself, Heather Davis, or your school counselor, your student school counselor. All right. All right. Trying to go down to list catching up here. So, who'll be the best person at school to contact? Any questions regarding school links? Um, Heather, I would say the counselor at your school. >> Yes, your school counselor. Your student school counselor. All right, next one. Will this recording be available? Absolutely. All right. Uh, is the extra information, the name of the university the parent attended, uh, is that could be added into profile, is that visible to the student or any of their colleges or counselors? Um, in terms of visibility, um, it's as visible as you want it to be for those. Um, with those affiliations, um, there there are additional
059things that you could do such as like requesting a transcript. Let's say you're connected to a school or college that also is using, sorry, not college, a school that is using school links. Um, some of that information will show if like you're requesting things like transcripts um, from your parent and guardian account. Um, and then for colleges, that won't show to students or to the counselors. Um, your profile again is really as private as you would want it to be. Thank you, Lucas. All right. How often do schoolings update the test score reporting? for example, ACT, they changed the way they calculate their composite scores this fall. Um, as we get that information each year for from um colleges, universities, act, college board, um we make those configuration changes within the platform. So, we're pretty
060up to date with how they're making their changes. But again, if something's off or doesn't match with what your expectations are, just let us know via chat and we'll happy to get it we'll be happy to get updated for you. All righty. Got about five minutes left. So, if you want to squeeze in a few additional questions, I'm happy to answer. Um, but again, you have access to the uh help center, the support chat, and I'll just show that one more time before we close out. Um, give you all time to add any additional questions you may have. Okay. Uh, so just one more quick time before we close out. Bottom righth hand corner, that's going to be your chat and then you can use this to ask a question. You can use the AI
061chatbot to get the answers to any of the questions you have about how school links works. If it's something like, hey, I was viewing this college page and the information needs to be updated, then you can uh type in talk to a person and then let us know via our support chat and we'll be able to help and support you there. One additional thing um I think would also be helpful is um if you or and or your student um maybe English is not your first language or you prefer to have the pages adjusted in a certain language in the top right hand corner no matter what page you're on you can click on this gear icon and then you have language translation and that will adjust the entire experience of school links into whatever
062language you need it to be in. It'll take a second here and it will adjust and change the languages for you. All right. And that will work throughout the entire platform. So messages and everything else included as well. All right. With that being said, um I will say thank you so much for your time uh on the day before Halloween and everything else going on. I hope you all have a great rest of your week and I'll turn it over to Heather to officially close us out. >> Great. I was just answering one more question. Okay. Uh thank you all so much for your time. I'm really happy to have so many um so many in our community join our webinar this evening. Thank you, Michael, so so much. And again, we will post this
063online. um and we'll have others. So, we'll keep learning together and um support our students. Have a great evening. Thank you so much.