An Educational Take on 40 Chances for Finding Hope in a Hungry World...Part 2

As a proud alum of Cozad High School, I now work as guidance counselor in a system that affords me more professional freedom and autonomy than I could have ever imagined. This freedom is a blessing and a curse.  When things go well, it is satisfying, but due to my nature of being a perfectionist, it is too obvious to me the areas we need to focus more time and energy into keeping our small town vibrant.

Driving through our downtown, there are some stark contrasts that stand out to even the casual observer.  There are many vacant store fronts that stand as a relic of the lost opportunity of succession planning.  Then just a few blocks away there is new construction taking place where businesses are growing and thriving.

So what can we do to address the reality that our rural community is failing to retain our best and brightest after graduation or college and return home?

One idea, is to commit ourselves to doing a better job of connecting our students with our stakeholders and business people.  At some point, all of our students will be looking for a professional opportunity.  For some of those students, it may come to the point where they have the desire to work at level higher than 'just an employee'.  That is where our opportunity presents itself.  By connecting students with our stakeholders in the area/areas they have an interest, we can build long term relationships that someday may provide an open door for our students to return to our community.  The collateral benefit: these business have a pool of interested individuals to one day come back and sustain the existence of our business community.

A start to the large task of connecting our youth with our business community is our upcoming senior seminar on Friday November 20th.  This day has two focuses: 1. Help seniors identify their options after high school. 2. Connect our seniors with our local professionals to build their network and begin opening the door for them to one day return to our community.

During our event, we have a networking luncheon planned where students will have lunch in small groups with local business professionals.  These groups were formed through a survey where kids identified the career areas they are most interested in.  While there are many great sessions planned, this session, in my mind has the potential to be the best session of all.  It is our hope that this session is the catalyst for building some great relationships that years from now will bring some of our students back home.  This session would not be possible without the partnership of several key members of our community.  Larry Paulsen of Paulsen Inc. and Robyn Geiser from Cozad Development Corporation have been phenomenal partners.  Both of these individuals are invaluable to our school system and community.

These partnerships with local stakeholders are the essence of what is allowing us to move forward in improving the educational experience for our kids.  Bringing local control back to our schools will be a focus of our efforts and programs over the forseeable future.  Our experiences over the last few years have proven to us how valuable these partnerships can be.  I would encourage and challenge schools to focus more on developing these local partnerships since we collectively benefit from improving our students experiences.

Stay tuned for the third part of this series that will discuss the economic opportunities for our students that exist in small rural communities and how we can capitilize on these to bring more of graduates back home.