PAES (Career Lab)

Practical Assessment Exploration System (PAES)

What is the PAES Career Lab?

The PAES Career Lab is a differentiated job training and work-assessment program that provides students with hands-on exposure to a variety of careers and jobs.

The Career Lab includes 5 employment areas:

• Business/Marketing Unit

• Consumer Service Unit

• Construction/Industrial Unit

• Computer Technology Unit

• Processing/Production Unit

How the PAES Career Lab Works

• Within each of the 5 career units, there are 8-10 sub- task areas.

• These 8-10 tasks are then broken down into 6 difficulty levels (1 is the easiest, 6 is the hardest).

  • ​Each task is hands- on where the students is actually performing the work

  • Students start at level 1 of each task and advance to the next level after mastery is achieved.

• After completing each level, students are given a competitive employment score and they rank the task based on personal preferences and interests.

paes career lab: impact on Sycamore's work-study program

• The Career Lab at Sycamore is a job training and assessment tool that will act as a prerequisite for community based work study

  • The lab gives the student and IEP team individualized results pertaining to their employment strengths, competitive work skills, preferences and interests.

  • We will obtain data that can be used to shape career exploration and allow us to approach new businesses to develop more meaningful community based job placements.

• This lab also provides a safe and structured job training environment for students who may not be ready to participate in a community based environment.

• This lab allows our staff to differentiate instruction in the moment based on student needs and progress.