Personal Learning Plan

Industry Recognized Credentials

Industry Recognized Credentials (IRCs) provide a way for students to show proficiency in a particular set of knowledge and skills.  A credential of this sort may increase marketability with employers and provide a path to job prospects and education and training opportunities.  To meet the requirements of the South Dakota High School Graduation Advanced Career Endorsement a student must earn at least one IRC.  If the student is meeting the requirements of the endorsement through coursework in an approved CTE program (in part or in full), the credential must be from the same cluster as the student’s coursework.  The table below lists the IRCs offered in each cluster and the course(s) where they are offered. 

An IRC valuable across many career fields, The National Career Readiness Certificate examination assesses an individual’ s skill level in three areas deemed critical for employability: Reading for Information, Applied Mathematics, and Locating Information. ACT, the organization that developed the college testing standard, researched over 16,000 occupations before developing these three WorkKeys® assessments for the NCRC.

NCRC is awarded at four levels: Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Each is an objective validation to employers anywhere in the U.S. that an individual has met or exceeded the necessary foundational skills for a percentage of the 16,000 occupations in the WorkKeys database. For example, a Gold certificate verifies that an individual has the necessary skills for 93% of occupations. An employer may use NCRC scores for baseline applicant screening; hiring and promotion decisions; and targeting employee training and development.

For more information about the NCRC, visit http://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/workkeys-for-educators/ncrc.html

SCHOLARSHIPS

The state of South Dakota, institutions, businesses, individuals, and other organizations offer various scholarship opportunities for students as a way of supporting further education and training after high school.  Students should research their opportunities and prepare accordingly for scholarships they would like to apply for or achieve. There are several resources available to students where they can locate scholarships and evaluate their interest, eligibility criteria, and application process.

OurDakotaDreams.com

This website, supported by the South Dakota Department of Education and the South Dakota Board of Regents, serves as a guide to college and beyond for South Dakota’s students.  There are many resources available to students and their families that also include a South Dakota Scholarship Board.  This tool offers filter and search options to help students locate scholarships.

SDMyLife.com (Xello)

SDMyLife is supported by a program called Xello.  Students have access to their very own career planning account in Xello where they can research careers, complete career navigation assessments and activities, outline their goals and plans, and also search for scholarships in the Scholarship Matching tool.  Students can save scholarships of interest and track their applications and awards.  Students can use their K12 email credentials to login to Xello at SDMyLife.com.  Parent/Guardian can also be granted access to their student’s Xello account and experience a demo account by contacting their school’s counseling office.

South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship

The State of South Dakota has established a scholarship for high school graduates attending a university, college, or technical college in South Dakota that is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. This program awards a scholarship up to $7,500 over four years to high school graduates from South Dakota who complete a challenging high school curriculum and maintain certain academic standards. 

Additional information can be found at https://sdos.sdbor.edu/Pages/default.aspx