October 10, 2024 6 min read
Centralizing and Unifying Work-Based Learning as a District with Vector Solutions: West-MEC Success Story
Industry:
Solution:
The Customer
Western Maricopa Education Center (West-MEC) in Glendale, Arizona, is a public school district that provides innovative Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. In the 2024-2025 school year, 2,800 West-MEC students are utilizing the Vector Pathways Work-Based Learning Platform. Additionally, there are over 100 teachers, staff, and admins utilizing the platform and the district manages 1,600+ industry and business partner relationships through Vector Pathways.
The Challenge
- Implementing an intuitive platform for all stakeholders (students, educators, and administrators). West-MEC was using a limited platform, which only tracked student work-based learning (WBL) hours and relied on students to input those. Additionally, as technical issues arose, it took several days to receive a response from the prior vendor’s customer support.
- Centralizing all work-based learning data in one platform. With thousands of students and industry partners and close to 70 instructors, everyone was collecting, managing, and storing WBL data and resources differently, which made it increasingly difficult to report on WBL data and West-MEC’s impact.
- Building and managing industry and business partnerships. West-MEC partners with over 1,600 organizations to create meaningful learning experiences for students. With a far-reaching industry network like West-MEC’s, it was becoming difficult to manage and engage with their industry partners.
The Choice
When Susan Leon came into her role as the Work-Based Learning Specialist, she wanted a platform that centralized items and made things transparent for all teachers, administrators, and staff across the entire district.
West-MEC chose the Vector Pathways Work-Based Learning Platform to help them:
- Increase visibility into the WBL journey for students, teachers, administrators, and business partners by leveraging an intuitive, online platform, which allowed students to accurately enter their WBL hours and access their WBL experiences; Allowed teachers to manage all WBL documentation and workflows; And enabled West-MEC to send out digital links (advisory councils, documents, and more) to stakeholders.
- Centralize WBL Documentation district-wide by housing agreements, insurance documentation, and much more in one central location. Vector Pathways also empowered their Career Services department to implement an online job board for students.
- Report on WBL more effectively and accurately by providing a more comprehensive picture of their WBL impact as a district. By using the Vector Pathways platform to pull reports on experiences, WBL hours, forms, badges, and more, Mrs. Leon and other WBL leaders are able to inform administrators and teachers of progress.
“West-MEC’s goals are to make work-based learning documentation more seamless for the instructors and district. Leaning into a digital resource like the Vector Pathways platform provides us so much more than using paper tracking. We want to be on the cutting edge of WBL and offer WBL experiences to our students that break the mold and provide high quality experiences. The Vector Pathways Platform helps us do that.”
Susan Leon
Work-Based Learning Specialist
The Change
As a leading district on the WBL forefront, West-MEC has a work-based learning platform that meets the needs of all students, teachers, and administrators by:
- Centralizing All WBL Data, Resources, and Documentation – West-MEC has centralized all WBL data, resources, and documentation in the Vector Pathways platform, which has increased transparency among administrators, teachers, and staff members. It helps store important WBL agreements and insurance coverage verification so teachers can quickly understand potential opportunities for students.
- Enhancing & Streamlining Business Partnerships – West-MEC has gained better visibility into their 1,600+ business and industry partners by leveraging Vector Pathways. The platform enables them to better understand engagement between partners, staff members, and students. These insights can help drive further expansion with partners. All partner documentation can easily be hosted, managed, and shared within the platform, which streamlines creating student experiences. Through detailed reporting, West-MEC can track how many businesses have completed WBL agreements and committed to hosting students at their sites, helping them build valuable partnerships that enhance student learning and career development opportunities.
“The platform has helped us centralize things immensely! We now have a centralized database of industry partners and organizations where we can write notes and see how they interact with our programs. This helps us all to see, as a district, when organizations are engaging with other staff members and how we can expand/continue/share that conversations are ongoing or have occurred already.”- Susan Leon, WBL Specialist at West-MEC
- Informing Strategy with Powerful Data – West-MEC uses Vector Pathways’ reporting capabilities to help them better understand real-time WBL activity, inform future WBL innovations, and support them with sharing data back to home high schools and the Arizona Department of Education. In addition to seeing their overall WBL impact across their district, West-MEC can report on any number of elements, such as experiences, hours, business partner engagement, compliance, and more. These reporting capabilities help support their efforts to increase their program effectiveness and to ensure it aligns with their WBL continuum.
- Improving Advisory Council Management – West-MEC has 28 advisory councils which are all managed out of the Vector Pathways platform. This has helped them better coordinate, manage, and report on compliance for all programs. It enables them to quickly take attendance and host all documentation in one, centralized platform.
- Increasing Student Empowerment & Career Readiness – West-MEC has seen an increase in student engagement and career readiness by using Vector Pathways. The platform empowers students to see the totality of their participation in WBL experiences and how it aligns with their internal WBL continuum. The platform enables them to use printable reports to inform their resume development, interview skills, and scholarship/college applications. In 2024, West-MEC implemented a Career Literacy Program (“Career Trees”) in Vector Pathways. Every student in the district has been assigned a Career Tree badge, which comes with a set of activities to complete within the system. This initiative is directly aligned with West-MEC’s superintendent’s goal of ensuring that every student graduates with a clear and actionable career plan. By engaging in these activities, students are better prepared for life beyond school, with a focused pathway toward their future careers.
Vector Solutions is proud to partner with Susan Leon and West-MEC to help them continue to strengthen their approach to WBL and increase meaningful learning experiences for students.
Susan Leon
Work-Based Learning Specialist
About Vector Solutions
Vector Solutions’ Work-Based Learning Platform, Vector Pathways, enables schools, districts, and CTE centers to create more work-based learning experiences for students through streamlined workflows, business partner engagement, and experience tracking.
Our Vector Pathways platform leverages powerful tools to increase the effectiveness of your WBL program by:
- Enhancing & Streamlining Business Partnerships
- Tracking WBL Program Metrics & Data to Drive Decisions
- Simplifying & Digitizing WBL Programs
- Increasing Student Engagement & Demonstrating Career Readiness
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The Vector Pathways work-based learning platform, enables schools, districts, and CTE centers to create more work-based learning experiences for students through streamlined workflows, business partner engagement, and experience tracking. To learn more about Vector Pathways, schedule a demo.
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