A year ago Sarah Ramirez’s government class at Alamosa High was studying polling and community surveying, and how policy can be made and influenced after understanding the views and concerns of others.
The class developed its own surveying instrument and ended up with five policy recommendations based on the input, including a need to help seniors better navigate their post-high school careers.
Now on Wednesday Alamosa High will host its inaugural Shape Your Future Day, tied to a broader month-of-October Shape Your Future focus among teachers and administrators to bring greater awareness to the resources students have to help figure out their post-high school selves.
“We do a good job of posting scholarship information and things like that,” Ramirez said, “but there is still a disconnect for some students as far as making use of those resources.”
It was the survey of juniors and seniors a year ago that helped Ramirez and her colleagues in the Alamosa High Counseling Office and English Department better grasp ways to design a month and then a specific day to help the seniors prepare for life after high school graduation.
Alamosa High’s Shape Your Future Day is intended to engage seniors with options, whether it’s the workforce, career tech education, the traditional college route, or possibly the military. “We want to flood them with resources” is the goal of the school’s organizing committee, said Ramirez, including help with resumes, federal financial aid for college, or help with interview skills.
Having students focus on their post-high school life in October and during the latter part of the fall semester is intentional, Ramirez said. It’s the period when the much-dreaded FAFSA application for federal student aid opens up for graduating seniors and when schools like Adams State will waive their application fees.
It also gets seniors thinking early about what they will do once they cross the stage at Alamosa High School in the spring with their diploma in hand. And if they don’t yet have a plan, or even an idea, at least Shape Your Future Day and the month of October will get them thinking about what comes next.