Local Resident’s New Software Means More Efficient School-To-Career Program

By Jeff White

Newtown High School’s growing School-to-Career program (SCP), which places students in real world working environments, will swell to twice the number of participants in the fall as it had this past year. For program coordinator Peg Ragaini, that means more files to organize, more contacts to call, and more reports to submit to the state.

Luckily, her job might turn out to be easier next year, and she will have Newtown resident Pat Oliver to thank.

Mrs Oliver, a self-taught computer programmer, has developed software specifically designed for use in school-to-career programs. The tasks of matching students with employers, compiling a list of employer contacts, and keeping track of the students participating in the program are all automated under Mrs Oliver’s software.

“[The software] takes very labor-intensive, administrative functions and brings them down to something that is more than manageable,” Mrs Oliver explained recently.

Thanks to grant money received from the state Department of Education over the last few years, Newtown High School enjoys an extensive school-to-career program. Under its SCP, the high school offers students career shadowing with area professionals, industry tours of local businesses, school-based businesses like The Back Door Café and NHS Greenery, internships, and the semiannual senior project.

In addition to student services, the SCP oversees teacher “externships,” or opportunities for high school faculty to spend time at local businesses seeing how their curriculum is applied in professional environments.

All told, Mrs Ragaini estimates that close to 100 students participated in the SCP last year. It was because of this growth in the program that Mrs Ragaini first went to Pat Oliver and explained the needs of the program.

“There is a tremendous amount of data they keep track of,” Mrs Oliver explains. For her part, Mrs Oliver’s software promises to make organizing that data a much less daunting task.

The SCP software that Mrs Oliver created will essentially act as a large database that will store student information, the telephone numbers of employers interested in helping out with the program, along with keeping track of credits earned by students participating in the program.

Moreover, since the software is automated and acts like a template, the small, time-consuming tasks of drafting permission slips, confirmation and cover letters to business and employers, and grant reports that need to be filed to the state can be done with a few clicks of a mouse.

All told, it took Mrs Oliver six months to create this SCP software, which the high school’s career center started using late last spring. From its first day, the software made a big difference in how Mrs Ragaini organized materials. “What it made easier was keeping track of all the different information and possibilities, and the contacts I made,” Mrs Ragaini explains.

Mrs Ragaini says that she expects the software to be in full use by the start of the school year in the fall. “I’m anticipating using it to the fullest this year,” she says, citing that she is still in the process of entering the names into the system of students who have participated in internships and other SCP offerings.

“I think it’s going to set up a system so that Jane [McEvoy] and I are consistent for what we are doing.”

It is becoming obvious that Mrs Oliver’s program works. Already, Danbury, New Fairfield, and Brookfield school systems have purchased it as a pilot program, as has Litchfield’s Education Connection. The state Department of Education recently recognized it as “Best Practice” in Connecticut for all school-to-career programming.

Mrs Oliver, who operates her Oliversoft.com software design business in conjunction with Total Technology Solutions on Mt Pleasant Road, says that the potential for strength and success of NHS’ SCP warranted her software package. “The main concern for school-to-career programs is how to make the programs sustainable,” she says. “The federal government gave money to start districts out, but how will you maintain these programs?”

“I really do believe that they will do it,” she adds. “[This software] just saves so much time, and ultimately more students can benefit from the school-to-career program and the efforts of the coordinators.”

Which is what Peg Ragaini sees as the best advantage of the new software: helping more students. “That’s the point of the whole thing. We wanted to make more opportunities for students,” she says. “Our senior projects have doubled. The career shadowing program continues to grow. We will start to offer [our own] internships. This is everything we want to happen.

“I’m hoping that what the database will give me is a foundation. I do believe that it is going to make a huge difference in the amount of opportunities that will be available to students.”