Golden Path Solutions Newsletter – March 2025

by | Mar 7, 2025 | Blog, News | 0 comments

February was a busy month of events, visits, and discussions all related to workforce development and career exploration. We celebrated CTE Awareness Month with our friends at North Dakota Career and Technical Education and shared Golden Path’s mission at multiple career fairs across North Dakota. We attended events and visited with students at Sheyenne High School in West Fargo, ND, Detroit Lakes (MN) High School, and Northern Cass High School in Hunter, ND. Our staff also made multiple trips to Bismarck, ND, for the legislative session as well as the North Dakota School Counselor Association (NDSCA) Annual Conference.

Also in February, we released many new features to Compass, including a school events calendar for employers, fostering more connections between our audiences.

Here’s what else is new in the March newsletter:

New features released in Compass

Our February release included many new features in Compass that deliver more value to our audiences. A new school events calendar for employers makes it easy to find opportunities to connect with students. Notifications alert employers to events they may be interested in, with plenty of time to register.

Compass is also now available for college students and adult users, as well as college administrations to manage student information. Employers can simply select their intended audiences for their work-based learning opportunities, Career Profiles, or events. This new option supports our goal of making Compass a one-stop shop connecting all our audiences.

We’ve added the ability for school professionals to create employer accounts and invite users to those accounts, if the employer needs some help getting started.

Finally, Compass now allows employers, colleges, and communities to share their information publicly without a login. This makes it easy to share a Career Profile, for example, with someone who doesn’t yet have a Compass account. This is also useful for our colleges and communities so they can highlight their employers, their amenities, and their incentives before requiring a user to go through the account creation process.

Watch for more Compass updates!

Work-based learning fine-tuned in Compass

We’re working with several schools to refine the work-based learning management process in Compass. Grand Forks Public Schools helped us identify some features (such as electronic signatures for work-based learning and improved scheduling for job shadowing) that would strengthen the application and document management process in Compass.

Other schools provided valuable insight into improved processes for event registrations, employer management of evaluations, and Compass use for the Four-Year Rolling Plan. Golden Path is working closely with XAP and school stakeholders to prioritize those features. Let us know if you have a Compass feature recommendation.

North Dakota’s legislative session back after crossover

In North Dakota, our legislators meet every two years to craft and pass bills.  We’ve just hit the halfway point, called “crossover,” where bills created in the House head over to the Senate and vice versa.

Golden Path is carefully watching several bills from education and workforce development perspectives, including funding for more work-based learning resources, bills supporting our public school system, and bills for childcare services to help new parents who want to continue working on their careers. We are in favor of bills that support education for all, help students develop the critical thinking and problem-solving skills they need for future careers, and help our employers and partner organizations remain strong, especially in an uncertain environment.  One bill we are supporting is SB2019, focused on funding for Career & Technical Education, including adding more work-based learning coordinators to accelerate workforce development between schools and employers across the state.  Reach out to your local legislators or submit testimony to support this bill and other bills supporting workforce development.

Upcoming opportunities with Golden Path

We’re looking forward to upcoming events with our partner schools. Golden Path is proud to partner with North Valley CTC in Grafton, ND and the Bakken Area Skills Center in Watford City, ND, connecting students with employers for opportunities this summer and next fall. Both schools use a formal interview process to fill positions that we will help facilitate. We are ensuring that all of their opportunities are available and published in Compass for students to browse and apply for.  Check out this YouTube video Watford City did about their work-based learning program with Jill Leach (WBL Coordinator), community leaders, and students who participate in the program.

Golden Path is also presenting at the 2025 Economic Summit in Detroit Lakes, MN, hosted by the Detroit Lakes Regional Chamber of Commerce. We will be highlighting our work with local schools.

February was CTE Awareness Month

We just wrapped up CTE Awareness Month, supporting many regional schools in their drive to help employers and parents understand the benefits of Career and Technical Education. The celebration included the CTE Showcase at the Capitol in Bismarck.

One of the biggest misconceptions of CTE is that it only includes the trades. In fact, every single career is touched in some way by CTE, including engineering, business, marketing, computer science, healthcare, construction, manufacturing, child development, and more. At Golden Path, we encourage students to try out at least one CTE class during their high school career, as it can help students discover their skills and interests and determine what they might like to do after graduation.

We also wrapped up our first joint Facebook advertising campaign with NDCTE and shared several CTE-related posts and a video on our Facebook page.

Welcome to Lynnes Welding Training in Compass

We’re excited to welcome Lynnes Welding Training as a new postsecondary education option for students in Compass. We know some students want to enter the workforce soon after graduation and programs like Lynnes Welding Training helps make that happen. Its 16-week programs prepare students for careers in welding with specific employers, including some in Compass like True North Steel, American Crystal Sugar, and Fisher Industries. Watch for Lynnes Welding Training in Compass!

Golden Path partners with the FMWF Chamber

Golden Path is working with the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce to help drive awareness on work-based learning as a workforce development strategy.  Along with the Chamber and other partners in the region, we’ll be delivering a training series that focuses on what work-based learning is, how it works, how to use it as part of a broader workforce development strategy, and considerations for work-based learning within certain industries.

Work-based learning is a great way to bring educators, students, and employers together to help everyone plan for their future, and it is incredibly valuable for organizations like the Chamber to act as a catalyst to drive connections and awareness.

Stay tuned for more information about the series and when it will be delivered.

Student awarded electrical tech Sponsorship

When Carter Benson graduated from Breckenridge (MN) High School last spring, he not only finalized his college plans, he secured full-tuition coverage, a summer job, and a job for after graduation – his college graduation.

Thanks to a Sponsorship from C&W Services and Cargill, both of Wahpeton, Benson received full tuition reimbursement to study electrical technology for two years at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton. He will earn his Associate of Applied Science degree while receiving hands-on training by working summers and school breaks in electrical maintenance at Cargill’s high fructose corn syrup plant. In exchange, Benson signed a two-year work agreement for after graduation with C&W Services, the company that provides the mechanical, electrical, and facility maintenance and service for the processing plant.

Benson benefits from free college tuition and a future job, while C&W Services and Cargill gain a specially trained employee. The Sponsorship is a win for all involved parties.

“I’m excited about the tuition coverage and that I have a job I can rely on,” says Benson, now a first-year student at NDSCS. “I don’t have to look for somewhere else to work after college. And while I’m in school, I can apply what I’m learning right away. I can relate my work to my schooling and vice versa. It’s very helpful.”

Read the whole story.

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