Burlington High School has become one of 156 school districts in Iowa to adopt the Iowa Jobs for Graduates program.
“Basically what IJAG is is a program to help kids get employability skills and get them ready for a job after high school and stuff,” BHS senior and IJAG President Dimitri Donald said. “What we do in this class is assignments and stuff basically so we can get a feel of what the work life is like and what employers are looking for in employees.”
IJAG offers leadership training, career education, individualized guidance and employer training to students in the program.
of the school’s IJAG program, tries out firefighting gear Wednesday, March 6,
during Western Illinois University’s Law Enforcement Justice Administration
Open House. Donald was among more than 50 BHS students to attend the
career exploration event.
“It’s a class built around skill-building,” IJAG coach Jeff Woodside said. “As a whole, it’s building skills for success after high school, whether you choose to go through college or enter the workforce or whatever, just work on building communication and leadership.”
The program is available to BHS juniors and seniors. Donald, who plans to begin his pursuit of an associate degree in construction management next year at Kirkwood Community College, said he decided to take the program as a class after learning about it from Principal Monica Myers. He’s glad he did.
“It’s a two-class trimester, but I’m going to take it all three trimesters,” Donald said just ahead of the end of the second trimester. “I like that it’s something different than actual school. You’re learning stuff that you’re actually going to use after high school rather than complex math equations that you may never use.”
Donald ticked off a number of projects he and his classmates in IJAG have done, such as budgeting for an apartment, utilities and furnishing. Another project involved creating a promotional video for a local business.
“What we’re working on right now is creative catch,” Donald said. “We have to make a commercial and choose an industry.”
The students were able to pick the business they wanted to serve and landed on The Main Line, a new seafood restaurant in downtown Burlington. They then identified the target audience and designed the video to cater to that audience.
Building relationships with local employers is key to the program, Woodside said, explaining the program also is largely student driven.
“So I’ll have an outline for a project, but essentially they’ll get to decide how we get to an end goal.”
The student voice component of the program has taught Donald a lot about leadership. Donald ran for president of his IJAG class on the slogan, “I will listen to your ideas and make sure your opinions are noticed.”
That message seemed to resonate with his classmates. As IJAG president, Donald attended an IJAG leadership conference in Des Moines, where he conquered his fear of public speaking and learned more about what it means to be a leader.
“Leadership means being able to guide people and give them good advice and let them know what’s right from wrong and show them what’s good to do, just kind of lead by example,” Donald said.
The program also provides students guidance on landing an interview through resume and cover letter writing. Donald’s resume and cover letter qualified for the state Career Development Conference’s Employability Skills category. Another student, Shay Stringer, qualified for the Financial Literacy category.
Donald highly recommends the program to other students, and he looks forward to seeing how it grows in the years to come.
“This program is going to get bigger and bigger,” Donald said. “We’re trying to get partnerships throughout the community for people to have internships and apprenticeships after high school, so I would definitely recommend this to people.”
