New jobs program to start next year in Kearney Public Schools

According to KPS Superintendent Jason Mundorf, the Jobs for America’s Graduates program is designed to help students find a career path.

“The person that is hired works in the school and works with kids to really set up a variety of career activities and experiences for them. They obviously learn about a variety of careers they go out and they visit local industries, they tour a lot of facilities, there can be apprenticeships through this program,” Mundorf said. “They work on those job readiness skills and there are also some potential for some student competitions.”

“It’s really a robust career awareness program,” Mundorf added.

The program will first be introduced at the Hanny Arram Center for Success for students of all grade levels.

Jason Owens, the principal at the Success Center, described the pride he felt with JAG being apart of their curriculum.

“I think it’s gonna be just another feather in our cap because it’s going to be yet another way for our kids to connect with somebody, connect with the community to learn what businesses there are in Kearney and the opportunities there are for them after graduation,” Owens said.

The success center students will have JAG courses in their schedule starting the 24/25 school year.

“JAG will run just like any other class in our school runs, say you’re in algebra class period four, your period five might be your JAG class, so I have a schedule built for our JAG teacher based on each grade level that goes through our regular program, and then also on our half day program they’ll have some JAG time built into their schedule as well,” Owens said.

Despite the new additions to the curriculum the class size at the Success Center will still be kept at 10.

“We’re starting at the Arram Center because we felt like that would be the best place in our district where kids don’t have some of that exposure,” Mundorf said. “This really helps them give some career education curriculum.”

The hiring of the JAG instructor will be handled by United Way of the Midlands, which works with local United Way chapters who take part in the hiring process. United Way also takes care of the instructor’s compensation as well.

“This employee is an employee of the United Way of the Midlands so they pay the employee cost, they evaluate the employee, obviously receiving feedback from our principal. That’s not a cost that is incurred to the school district,” Mundorf said. “The United Way of the Midlands received a lot of money from the state. Really the kudos and credit for really launching a lot of the funding for this is through Gov. (Jim) Pillen.”

JAG seems to be an exciting new addition to KPS with hopes that it will lead to student success after they have received their diploma.

“I just hope we have a good robust organized way of showing our kids the many different employment opportunities, the various sectors of business and industry that we have in Kearney,” Mundorf said.