Ishmale Davis, the new Jobs for Virginia’s Graduates (JVG) Specialist at Radford High School, holds a student’s baby while teaching recently at Radford High School.
Heather Bell
RADFORD – Radford High School is helping students through a program new to the school designed to help them achieve success in the post-secondary education world.
The program is Jobs for Virginia’s Graduates and is an extension of the grant-funded national Jobs for American Graduates program.
Ishmale Davis, a recent graduate from Radford University, is the new JVG specialist at RHS and says the program “highlights student progress in the post-secondary world and provides many other facets to our students.”
JVG has four main goals: help students graduate, help them seek post-secondary education, help them obtain a job, and get them started on a solid career path.
“We are very excited about students gaining more knowledge of business correspondence, resume writing, employment interviewing skills, public speaking, telephone techniques, job shadowing, responsibility and decision-making,” said Davis. “We also specifically focus on academic remediation, which is considered one-on-one tutoring in any academic subject.
Davis says he works with each student to create an individualized plan for success.
“We then focus on the class with the lowest performance and work towards bringing that grade up or finding the root of the problem,” he said. “Students are expected to report to class first and ask their teacher if it is okay to meet with me and/or a team member.”
Davis said the program is in its earliest stages, so it is an evolving situation.
“This is something new and we are always accepting feedback and opinions to better our program.” he said. “It is our belief that this program will be beneficial to the students in helping to prepare them to enter the labor force upon graduation. It will also be beneficial to the local business community by providing better prepared employees for the local companies.”
“The JVG program has already had a positive effect on student motivation and achievement,” said Jamie Little, education specialist for Radford City Schools. “This is in large part due to Mr. Davis and the relationships he’s formed with the JVG students. Mr. Davis is the perfect person to serve in the specialist role. He’s sharp, hard-working, organized, and has a huge heart for the students. He wants to see the JVG students succeed, and more importantly, he motivates them to want to succeed themselves.”
Dr. Margaret Sproule is also a member of the RHS team working with the JVG program.
“We are really excited to have JVG at Radford High School,” said Sproule. “This grant has allowed us to expand what we already had in place and reach more students. There is so much support built into this program to help students succeed.”
“We are being intentional in meeting them where they are, helping them do what they need to do to graduate, and guiding them to their next steps,” Sproule said.. “It’s really a lot of fun to be able to engage with the group and help generate this excitement for life after high school. Certainly, there’s no short-cut to success, but I think the students are seeing success in the process.”