We encountered several obstacles in the first two years of our grant project. We share them here along with our lessons learned to help you better anticipate and manage them. We received our award notification from IMLS on July 31, 2021. We jumped right in, hoping we had enough time to set up the program for the fall 2021 semester. We quickly learned that we needed more time to plan, to build relationships, and to understand the CTE life cycle.
Recruitment
We set out to recruit five students the first year and it proved to be our biggest challenge. Most students enrolled in CTE at East St. Louis Senior High School had already been matched with a workplace partner. The remaining students expressed interest, and we conducted mock interviews with several. Ultimately, we were able to match two students with libraries serving as workplace partners, but they didn’t begin working until late in the fall semester. Only one of those students completed the year-long program. We learned we needed to recruit in the spring and talk to students in their junior year who would be enrolling in CTE the following fall. We also learned that we needed to be involved as much as possible with recruiting, whereas we had relied on the CTE teachers and staff to do this for us the first year. There was confusion about what work librarians do. For example, we are not looking for people who love to read. Even though librarians typically do love reading, the work we do is quite different from the Hollywood image in people’s minds. In planning to recruit for the second and third year of the program, we learned the following:
- Involving Parents/Guardians: One thing we did not anticipate was building relationships with parents/guardians of CTE students. We put transportation costs into the grant budget because several of our workplace partners were not within walking distance of the high school. However, many parents/guardians expressed concern about their children using public transportation and were not comfortable with the distance students would need to travel.
- Workplace Proximity to High School: In the second and third year of the program, we partnered with Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri. The workplace partner for the cohort students was the Julia Davis Branch of St. Louis Public Library. This worksite is less than two miles from the high school, which alleviated transportation issues we had in the first year.
- Generational Differences: We created a recruiting video and were told by the CTE teachers that it was out of touch with high school students. We learned that the best approach is to meet students face-to-face.
Payroll & Grant Funds
In our program, students were paid with grant funds, which required months of administrative paperwork at SIUE to set up. It also required consistent communication between the students and human resources. Mentors and supervisors had to continue monitoring that timesheets were completed and submitted. We also had to be in touch with payroll to ensure checks and direct deposits were issued. Students were understandably frustrated while they waited to be paid. We learned to provide clear guidelines on the paycheck timeline.
Managing Our Expectations
Students participating in our program:
- May not engage or be interested in the program like we expected . To help sustain their interest in the program, students need diverse, engaging work.
- May not go into the library profession after program participation .
- May not meet program expectations .
- May not complete the program and/or be removed from the program.
We learned to be flexible and to support cohort students no matter the career paths they were interested in.
Disciplinary Decisions
There are situations where disciplinary actions may be necessary and it is a decision that should involve everyone: mentor, teacher, and workplace supervisor.
Support from IMLS
We have received so much support and guidance from IMLS as we have administered that grant. We do not hesitate to reach out to them to ask for help.