Communicating with Stakeholders

Education and its many offerings can overwhelm students, families, community members, and even educators. To help partners understand and evaluate available options, information should be presented clearly and logically. Additional supporting materials may also be needed to enhance understanding of educational choices.

In 2023-24, I collaborated with cross-functional teams in Cheney High School to create 13 different registration documents describing student course choices & pathways as well as accompanying digital materials to support understanding of options.

I collaborated with counselors, administration, colleagues, & the school district CTE Director to efficiently & accurately develop registration documents & supporting materials of high quality. Before releasing the documents for use by stakeholders, I seeked feedback from counselors & administrators who help students register for courses as well as industry business professionals who are parents of students in the school district.

Ensuring the registration documents could be used by students, families, & educators, the registration process was improved dramatically to inform stakeholders of the many options available within in our school. Students were able to easily register for courses that aligned to their post-secondary & workplace goals for the future.

Breaking Down the Resources

  • Course Pathway Documents

    Course Pathway Documents included 13 different career cluster pathway options including Agriculture, Arts, Business, Family & Consumer Sciences, Health Sciences, Marketing, STEM, Technology pathways. Additional pathways were developed for Military/Service & College Credit/AP students as well as students who haven't determined a pathway or career cluster. All pathway documents were included on the school website for access at anytime.

  • Registration Documents - Planning Guide

    Each registration document included a registration guide for all four years of high school. Students could complete the guide to plan their courses at each grade level with pathway-specific recommendations to support their future plans. Students could also fill in Art, CTE, Elective, & World Language Options using the second page with specific pathway course recommendations.

  • Registration Documents - Pathway Recommendations

    On the back of course registration guides, stakeholders were provided with individual pathways within career clusters. These pathway plans included recommended middle school courses as well as first, second, third, & fourth year course recommendations (listed in sequential order). Each pathway listed related career examples and additional related courses. All career cluster courses were included on each document to provide students an overall list to choose from if they wish to pursue a career cluster pathway that is not listed.

  • Course Description Guide

    Every course offered at Cheney High School listed in one online document. Every course is an active link to a description of the course & future courses in the associated pathways. Courses with college articulations, equivalency credits, AP credits, and College in the Classroom are indicated.

  • Individual Course Descriptions

    Live course descriptions provided for each course with the aligned pathway, course equivalencies, college articulations, and future course options in related pathways.

  • School Website Registration Information

    To provide information to all stakeholders, I updated the school website with course registration information & resources. Links on the website included: Course Registration Presentation Information/Walkthrough, Course Registration Documents by Career Cluster, Course Description Guide, Individual Course Descriptions, & a Walkthrough to Access Student Transcripts.

Stakeholder Testimonials

  • " The professional, organized and efficient efforts of which Leah was able to accomplish this task was remarkable. She created detailed infographics that were tangible and interactive. Students, parents and staff were able to explore potential career pathways that were detailed, and engaging while still understandable for all involved."

    Jeff Ward, CHS Counselor

  • "As the CTE Director for the district, I had a pile of ideas and documents that were not cohesive at all, and barely told the story that I wanted for our students and families. Leah took this information and built course pathway documents for the whole district that displayed my our ideas in a way I never thought possible, and in a way that reached students at their level. Her work was so amazing that I have had several other CTE Directors around the state ask for our documents so they could replicate them in their own district. It is a special design talent to bring scattered thoughts to life for others to see. "

    Adam Smith, Cheney Public Schools CTE Director

  • "Leah is one who has great institutional knowledge, is not afraid to share her perspective or have a difficult conversation. A great example of this skill set was her collaboration with our counseling and administrative team around the clear communication of industry pathways to our students as part of building stronger post secondary awareness for students. That work directly and positively impacted not only our 1500 students at CHS for registration, it also positively impacted the incoming 9th grade students from our feeder middle schools."

    Stacy Delcour, CHS Assistant Principal

  • "I felt like the registration documents had a really good basis for students to choose classes based on what they want to do in future, helping narrow down their options to what aligned to their careers & what they wanted to explore.”

    Paige Warnick, CHS Spanish/Advisory Teacher