Cincinnati Public Schools Case Study

Cincinnati Public Schools

Meeting state requirements and improving student outcomes with x2VOL

Quick Stats

Number of Years with x2VOL: 2 years
Number of Hours with x2VOL: 120,230 approved hours
Uses x2VOL to track and manage: 

• Work-based learning and career tech hours toward Ohio Seals Requirements
• Internships
• Job Shadowing
• Community Service 

About Their Program

Focus on Career Tech and Work-Based Learning
Cincinnati Public Schools has specific state requirements students need to meet for graduation per the Ohio State Seals. Their district program has a specific focus on work-based learning and career and technical education. The state of Ohio also has a larger list of approved activities and areas of focus that can count toward graduation. These programs in addition to other student programs in their district require managing a number of different student rosters, hours, experiences, and more. 

Career Tech & WBL:

• Career Tech and WBL are areas of compliance in Ohio
• Each pathway has a compliance goal of 15% 
• About 1,500 students are in a career tech program

• Students that earn 250 WBL hours over the course of their high school career can use that as a graduation requirement
• Students also have job shadowing opportunities 

Bonus Content: What is Work-Based Learning?

Community Service:

• Many high schools within the district have students that are actively serving in their communities 

• In many cases, service learning experiences can also count toward work-based learning requirements

Internships:

• Over 100 students in organized internships with no consistent way to track hours, experiences, and reflections
• Other opportunities that can qualify as both an internship and toward their WBL requirement 

CPS GOAL: Every student uses x2VOL to submit their hours for the 250-hour requirement

The Need for x2VOL

Hours management and accurate reporting across the district

Cincinnati Public Schools has a variety of students involved in various programs that all needed to be tracked and managed. School leaders and district leaders needed a way to track numbers and percentages of students meeting career tech hours goals to report back to the state. 

Bonus Content: How to Track Experiential Learning in Your District

What did they lack? A systematic and consistent means to track and report on student hours and experiences to meet state compliance.

Issues they faced:

• Lacked a collective record of activities for students to leverage for their futures
• No concise and accurate report across all schools in the district to report back to the state 
  
• Did not have a streamlined way to manage student WBL, CTE, or service hours as many campuses used Excel sheets 
• Meeting state compliance was an arduous task because records were not consistent
  

CPS Vision: If students are going for jobs even after high school CPS wants to ensure they have a report as a part of their portfolio to display the activities and work they completed as a part of their high school WBL program and as a part of a certain pathway. 

The Benefits of Using x2VOL

Activity logs and accurate reporting

With x2VOL, Cincinnati public schools was able to empower their school leaders and students with a tool that made tracking various program hours and experiences easy; they were also able to accurately measure progress toward state compliance goals. 

x2VOL allowed CPS to:

• Track career tech hours for compliance at the state level
• Provide necessary data to the state
• Have insight into what individual students are completing and what students are doing at a collective level
• Empower students with an activity log of their experiences to leverage on job applications, interviews, college applications, etc.
• Have deeper insight into student progress toward goals and requirement 
• Create a systematic and consistent way of tracking hours and experiences across all school campuses 
• Utilize one platform to manage a variety of programs, goals, and requirements across varying campuses and grade levels 

Hear From Cincinnati Public Schools