A Guide to Integrated Student Supports for College and Career Pathways: Lessons from Linked Learning High Schools

Equitable access to high quality career-themed high school pathways requires that school staff and all pathway partners work in concert to address each student's developmental needs, skills, strengths, interests, and aspirations. To this end, effective student supports are designed to reach beyond the academic domain, to meet all students where they are, scaffold their engagement with a standards-based curriculum, and address their learning and personal youth development needs. This guidebook continues an exploration of integrated student supports for universal college and career readiness that we began in Equitable Access by Design (2016). That report introduced a conceptual framework for implementing a system of comprehensive and integrated student supports that provides equitable access to a coherent, student-centered program of learning via Linked Learning pathways in high schools. This work is intended as a companion to Marisa Saunders' Linked Learning: A Guide for Making High School Work, published by the University of California, Los Angeles in 2013. The chapters in this guidebook offer seven illustrative profiles of educators and their partners in California high schools who are working collaboratively to develop comprehensive student supports that "link together" a rigorous academic curriculum, technical education, and workplace opportunities into a coherent learning experience for every youth in their school.
Chapter 1: Introduction
A conceptual framework for implementing a system of comprehensive and integrated student supports that provides equitable access to a coherent, student-centered program of learning
Chapter 2: Employer Partners
Fostering career competencies, youth development, and academic mastery via workplace learning experiences.
Chapter 3: Community Based Partners
Reconceiving the roles of teachers, counselors, and community-based partners as coaches for student success.
Chapter 4: Counselors
Preparing high school counselors to support college and career readiness for all.
Chapter 5: Families and Youth
Engaging family, youth, and community members as champions for equity and college and career readiness.
Chapter 6: The District Role
Aligning school-level student supports with district-wide strategies and standards for student learning.
Chapter 7: Continuation High Schools
Building college and career knowledge in continuation high schools for youth vulnerable to dropping out of high school.
Chapter 8: Postsecondary Engagement
Uniting K-12 and postsecondary leaders to help students persist and succeed.
Chapter 9: Lessons from the Field
Summing up: what we are learning about integrated student supports for college and career readiness.

Suggested Citation:

Ruiz de Velasco, J. (Ed.). (2019). A Guide to Integrated Student Supports for College and Career Pathways: Lessons from Linked Learning High Schools. Stanford, CA. John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities.

If you are interested in printing copies of the guidebook for a forthcoming training, please reach out to us via lpatron@stanford.edu. We can provide you with the pages in print-ready format, as well as printing instructions to share with your local print shop.