Career Guidance 1

Kevin Speer

CSPU617

12/7/18
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The career center and guidance department that I had the opportunity to visit

was with the San Joaquin County Office of Educations one.Alternative Program. The

one.Alternative Program serves at-risk youth in San Joaquin County. I had the pleasure

to visit with and interview Corina Morga one of the counselors in the program. I also

interviewed Todd Baker a veteran teacher in the program. The district operates about

28 school sites within San Joaquin County that range from daily school sites to

independent study sites. All of the sites fall within Title 1 funding, which means a high

number of the students come from low-income families. In 2017-2018, the district

served about 4,000 students within the programs. Student referrals range from

expulsion, SARB, or parent referral. The program serves students in General

Education, Special Education, Foster Youth and Homeless or Unaccompanied Youth

within the programs.

The first thing I asked Corina was what is the first thing she does to help her

students and how does she prepare them for career/ transitional guidance? She started

by talking about the Graduation By Exploration (GBE). The GBE is like a senior project

that the program requires students to complete before they can graduate. This

graduation requirement was designed to help the students explore potential

postsecondary and career options as well as spend time evaluating the skills they have

and the skills they will need to develop as they move beyond the program and into the

next phase of their life and demonstrate they are ready for the world. Students are

asked to create a presentation that demonstrates they have researched potential career
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pathways as well as post-secondary school options needed to pursue their potential

career plans. This requirement by the school meets the ASCA standards that states

“school counselors need to provide college and career awareness, exploration and

postsecondary planning and decision making, which supports the students’ right to

choose from the wide array of options when students complete secondary education”.

Corina also talked about how she gets the students started on the GBE by asking them

what their interest are, if students don’t have a good idea of what they want to do she

has them go to California Career Zone and they take the online interest survey to give

them some ideas on different careers options. Corina then gets the students looking into

different school options, trade schools, and other programs. If the student is work

focused she shows them how to apply for jobs, she helps students write a resume

which is also a requirement that has to be in the students GBE presentation. Corina

also talked about other programs such as WorkNet, and WorkStartYes which are

programs the county offers to get students started in the work field and it gives students

great work experience.

The next thing I asked Corina was what are some career/ transitional guidance

lesson plans or resources that she uses? Corina said that she likes to meet with

students more in the one on one setting and that she doesn’t always have specific

lesson plans, but then she said she has done some resume workshops in the past, and

financial aid workshops. Corina also talked about how she tries to show the students as

many options as possible so she gets the different branches of the military to come out

and talk with the students. She also gives the students the opportunity to take the
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ASVAB test. Ms. Morga had a lot of great information for her students and I could tell

she does a great job getting students ready for life after graduation.

My next interview was with Todd Baker. I asked Todd the same two questions I

asked corina. I started out with what is the first thing you do to help your students for

career/ transitional guidance? Todd said that he also uses the California Career Zone

assessment for students so they can get an idea of some of their interest. Todd said

that he has the students write a career research paper because another graduation

requirement for the program is to write two level 4 essay’s. Todd also talked about the

Graduation By Exploration and helping his students along the way with that process.

Todd then mentioned the CTE program that the county offers which are free programs

for students that are interested in welding classes, artitecture design classes, and

culinary art classes.

The next question I asked Todd was if he had career/ transitional guidance

lesson plans or resources? Todd said that there is a lesson that he teaches that uses a

life path simulator. The students get to pick the lifestyle they want to live and in what

area they want to live and it tells them how much money they need to make for that

lifestyle that they chose. I thought that was a really awesome lesson to get the students

thinking about their future plans. Todd also gave me the outline that he uses for the

career research paper that he talked about earlier.

After both interviews I realized that the San Joaquin County Office of Educations

one.Program does a great job with transitional and career guidance. Making the

Graduation By Exploration a graduation requirement is a great way to prepare students

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to transition into the next phase in a students life. They both talked about getting

students prepared for college or the work force depending on the students interest and

needs. In both interviews Corina Morga and Todd Baker showed that they do a great

job of meeting the ASCA Ethical Standards for school counselors. Todd Baker I believe

does a great job creating lessons for the whole class to get started on figuring out their

interest, where I believe Corina Morga does a lot more one on one with the students but

I feel that both strategies are effective and can complement each other. Both

interviewees talked a lot about many of the same programs and requirements they use

to get students prepared for life after high school and doing their best to get students

prepared for the world.

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Work Cited

Home | American School Counselor Association (ASCA). (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.schoolcounselor.org/