Session 1: 
What’s in it for Me?
Accountability measures for both college and high school and how the Get Focused…Stay Focused!® Initiative improves these measures! 

Dropout rates are a concern at both the high school and community college levels. This session will engage attendees in understanding critical areas of concern: factors impacting high school and college dropout rates, strategies at the programmatic and institutional levels to remedy dropouts, reducing the need for remediation upon entering college, and improving accountability outcome measures. Attendees will be introduced to the Get Focused…Stay Focused! ® Initiative, which addresses these measures in a dramatic way!

Session 2: 
GET FOCUSED…
A Dual Enrollment Freshman Transition (DEFT) Course!

Learn the ins and outs of a California Dual Enrollment program. Specifics about the Dual Enrollment Freshmen Transition (DEFT) course, and its implementation as a college/dual enrollment course will be covered. Explore the elements of the Career Choices curriculum—Who am I? What do I want? How do I get it? and the online My10yearPlan.com®—and how this curriculum can be offered for three units of college credit. Learn how the Get Focused…Stay Focused!® 16-lesson follow-up modules for 10th, 11th, and 12th grades can be integrated into existing classes and also how each module can receive one unit of college credit.

Session 3: 
GET FOCUSED… (continued)
Sustaining the success of the freshman course and the concept of “backward mapping”!

It’s all about relationship building! The instructor is the heart of the classroom—learn how to select the best and engage the rest! Gain useful supplemental resources and best practices from our local instructional “expert.” This session will also highlight strategic partnerships and the Progression in Education Model as well as how to successfully navigate two educational systems. You will learn strategies for engaging parents and community members!

Session 4: 
STAY FOCUSED! The Key to Postsecondary Success
Follow-up curriculum for grades 10, 11, & 12 and the important all-school buy-in! 

Learn about strategies for ALL-SCHOOL BUY-IN—the key to the success of the comprehensive Get Focused…Stay Focused!® Initiative. Attendees to this session will also be given curriculum modules for the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade follow-up to the Career Choices 9th grade course. Understanding the content and scope of these modules is critical to your implementation plan! Postsecondary attendees will gain an understanding of the importance of working closely with your area high schools in order to receive highly prepared matriculating freshmen—thus improving college accountability measures.

Session 5: 
Get Focused…Stay Focused!® Introduction to Implementation
The guide to having a successful program!

In addition to receiving the Get Focused…Stay Focused!® Manual, participants in this session will receive the Get Focused…Stay Focused!® Quick Start Implementation Guide and begin working through the Guide to create detailed planning for their own program. This session will also feature “Lessons Learned” and “Best Practices” for creating a highly successful program in high school or postsecondary. 

Session 6: 
Get Focused…Stay Focused!® Implementation (continued) 

Participants will continue to work through the GFSF Quick Start Implementation Guide and discuss “seamless transition” from high school to postsecondary. In this session we will address this gap and you will learn how to shift from a “send-off” model to a “hand-off” success! Gain strategies for engaging high school and college counselors in the process. 

Session 7: 
From an Instructor’s Perspective: Advice for Career Choices Teachers from Career Choices Teachers

Attendees from several Institutes will be treated to a very special panel discussion exploring freshman transition classrooms that work. This panel of Career Choices instructors will share some of the insights they've gained, techniques they've honed, and strategies they've implemented successfully in their own classrooms.