JAG And Life After Graduation

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company. I'm Devin Pentosa, your host. We are here in sunny and partly cloudy uh Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at the Scabsey Conference. And we are so excited to have with us our special guest, Latanya Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Thank you for having me.

What JAG Is And Does

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Latanya Jackson joins us from JAG, and that is part of Columbia High School in Richland One. Latanya, can you explain what uh JAG is?

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yes, JAG is Job for Americans graduates, and what we do is we prepare the students for life after graduation. So we help build their soft skills up and we do anywhere from vision boards so that they can have SMART goals to follow throughout the year and we track those SMART goals to make sure they're meeting them. We bring um employment engagement into the classroom for students can explore different career pathways. We also help them figure out what career pathway best fits them. We do, I don't like to say field trips, we do field studies to help them explore different work sites in different colleges, and they assist me with planning those. We also are responsible for community service. So we teach them how to be a real-rounded student. We also do scholarships within the classroom and we get them ready for those scholarships. And in today's world, we realize everyone might not want to go to college, and so there's other options out there, and we help them explore them.

Career Paths Beyond Four Year College

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Oh, that's wonderful. So can you give us an idea with Jobs for America's graduates? Uh, what kind of fields of study have been opening up for your students in the school?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, I'll be honest, um, a lot of them look into military as an option because they have financial barriers, and that's the way for them to still go to college. We have one student that just got the FDA certification for um flying drones. So that was an opportunity that opened up for him. Um we have some that's interested in AVAC and welding um outside of our traditional college students.

A Graduate Story That Opens Doors

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Oh wow, that's great. Um, do you have any special experiences where you're like, this is why I wanted to get involved with JAG?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yes, so the beauty of JAG is after graduation, we follow our students for 12 months, and so I recently had lunch with my graduates from class of 25. Um, while one of my students was home, she wanted to reconnect with the City of Columbia, which is one of our biggest partners and the mayor of the city. He really supports our program. So she was able to speak at one of the city programs, and they were so proud of how well she represented herself and her speech. I actually got a call yesterday while we were down here. We had someone from the House of Representatives that want her to be an intern. And so that's a great story of how you stay connected with your city and the opportunities that you have because of Jack. Without the partnership with Jack, she wouldn't have had the opportunity.

Bringing Students To The Conference

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Wow, that is incredible. Uh you know, you never know what's gonna happen and who you're gonna meet. Um that's that's great. Uh so you're here at Scabsey. Can you uh give us some ideas of things that you're hoping to uh get out of or communicate with the ScabSe community?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

So the reason why we're here, I'm actually on the other side of the conference with my youth. So I brought some of my JAG students here today. Oh, wonderful. And they are really having a good time in their breakout sessions, um meeting other students from the Columbia area and outside of Columbia, so they're using their networking skills that we teach in inside the classroom. I have a student here that wants to go into education and he wants to go into the Call Me Mr. program. And so Call Me Mr. did a breakout session with them earlier today, and because he's in JAG, he doesn't have to get ready. He's already ready. He had his resume and his official transcript with him, so he gave that to the professor over the program, and they had a great conversation about how they're gonna reconnect later for an interview.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

That's wonderful. What is Call Me Mister?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

So, Call Me Mister is a program um that assists students in becoming black educators.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Oh, okay. So he's interested in a career path in education.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

He wants to become a um history teacher and then later become the superintendent of our school district.

Why Every Student Should Join JAG

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Oh wow, that's great. You've got to have a lot of ambition to get out there and uh get the process started. Yep. Oh, that is so great. And uh so um, do you have anything you'd like to share as a takeaway to the Scabsey community?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yes, so I want to please get your students involved in JAG. This is not a program that's just an enrichment one. We are a national program across the entire United States. So if you have a JAG program in your high school and we do have a middle school model, please get your students involved because this opens up so many opportunities for them on the national level and the state level. Our national JAG president is currently working on Capitol Hill, and it's because of JAG he got this opportunity. So this is not just the original one program, this is a nationwide program. So to the Skapcy community, please have your kids come and enroll in JAG. It's a life changing experience, and we're a family.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Oh, that's so wonderful. Uh, thank you once again, Latanya Jackson, a JAG representative at Columbia High School. Thank you for joining us today.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Thank you for having me.