Five Steps Every District Must Take to Advance Students’ Postsecondary Futures

Author: Bill DeBaun, Senior Director, National College Attainment Network

What are the district-level conditions likeliest to lead to successful postsecondary transitions? What do we most often observe school districts providing equitable and effective advising to their students doing most often? These are some of the questions considered by a recently-released framework aimed at sparking conversation and driving action in school districts across the country.

Over the past year, individuals from 17 organizations engaged in postsecondary advising across the country convened virtually and in-person to develop a shared vision we hope will be even more broadly shared by districts in every part of the United States.

We ask a lot of the K12 system in the United States and place a tremendous responsibility in the hands of district- and school-level leaders and staff every day. Investing 13 years (or more) of energy, effort, time, and resources in our students shepherds them from childhood to adulthood and scaffolds the knowledge they’ll need to be successful later in life.

The organizations involved in the development of this framework are national leaders in the college access and attainment field and compared notes on the conditions we feel are critical for communities and school districts to exhibit to help students take their next, best step. Many of these organizations also shared the framework with district and school leaders they work with and incorporated their insight and counsel based on their experiences.

These five conditions include:

• District Leadership is Publicly Committed to Students’ Postsecondary Success
• District Sets Strategy and Allocates Resources to Reach Postsecondary Goals
• District Ensures that Schools Have Capacity to Support Students
• District Collaborates with Postsecondary Institutions and Community Partners
• District uses Real-Time Data to Continuously Improve Postsecondary Advising and Outcomes, Empower Students and Families

Each of these conditions is connected to specific, tactical practices. The framework’s website will soon host short stories and resources connected to putting these practices in place in the field. NCAN hosts its own set of K-12 resources that may also be useful to these ends!

We’d love to hear feedback, thoughts, questions, and reactions from the field about the framework. What resonates and what might need to be workshopped some more? Feel free to reach out to Bill DeBaun, Senior Director at NCAN at debaunb@ncan.org or use the contact form on the framework site.