Adulting 101: Carson City JAG program teaches career skills, communication and self-advocacy

Jobs for America’s Graduates, also known as JAG, is a program across the country that teaches life skills to high school students, so that they can be prepared for the work force after graduation. However, Carson City’s own Pioneer High School’s JAG instructor, Chyanne Corley, has taken that idea farther. She teaches her students not only to be prepared for the work force, but to become confident, well rounded adults.

JAG was brought to Nevada by Governor Sandoval in 2014. He appointed the 26 members of the JAG Nevada Board of Directors and conducted the inaugural meeting. The program began in Delaware in 1973, and is now in over 30 states, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and more states adopting the program.

There are over 17 programs in Northern Nevada with more potentially on the way, and over 20 in Southern Nevada, mostly in Las Vegas.

Corley is now going into her second year with the program at Pioneer High.

“We teach life skills most of all,” said Corley. “We have 37 core competencies we go through every semester. Career development, job attainment, job survival, basic competencies, leadership and self development and personal skills.”

Basically, the major lessons of these categories are: how to look for a job, how to get a job and how to survive in a job.

“We learn how to build resumes and cover letters, as well as interviewing skills,” said Corley. “We focus really hard on soft skills such as making eye contact in an interview, shaking their hand, knowing what to say and what not to say, avoiding slang, and basically representing yourself in a professional and appropriate manner.”

Corley, however, goes above on beyond, teaching more than just career skills, but skills to becoming well adjusted adults as well.

“I teach a lot of character development just because of where we are. A lot of our students don’t always have a two parent household, or don’t always get that support at home. Many of them do, but I personally like to focus heavily on that because it’s important to build self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth at a young age.”

Something important to Corley is that her students learn how to communicate when they are feeling uncomfortable, or angry, or sad, and how to deal effectively with those emotions.

The most important thing she thinks for young people to learn is self-advocacy and communication, whether it's in the work force or in their personal lives.

This includes not only teaching students how to standing up for themselves, but also learning healthy coping mechanisms and anger management, something they need not only in the adult world but in school as well.

She also incorporates meditation into the classroom, which the students have been very receptive to.

In a way, the program is student led. Inside the Pioneer Program is the “JAG Council,” similar to a leadership council. There is a President, Vice President, Student Representative, and other figure heads in the program. They are in charge of scheduling guest speakers, fundraisers, and even field trips.

“They're excited to be in leadership positions, because for some of them, they haven’t been presented with that opportunity before,” said Corley.

This year, the program has doubled for Corley from around 20 students to nearly 45.

While Corley might be making a difference in her students lives, they have definitely had an affect on her own life.

Corley graduated from University of Nevada without intending to work with children, until she took a youth mentoring class focusing on adolescents. She fell in love with it because she remembered how difficult that time in her life was for her, struggling to navigate growing up, school, friends, anxiety, and becoming an adult all in a fairly short span of time.

“I figured if I could help at least one other teenage person, then I would have done something worthwhile with my life,” she said.

One of the sites she worked with was the JAG program at Wooster High, and she found her calling. She met her hour requirements half way through the semester because she couldn’t stay away.

“It was the only thing that made me happy,” she said. “I felt like I was really making a difference there, that I wasn’t getting in the same way from just being in college. As soon as I started working here at Pioneer for JAG, I hadn’t realized until then that I had never been in a position in my life where I thought that I was doing something important. The staff here comes from all walks of life, but they are all genuine wonderful people that are here for the same reason. I’ve never worked with so many people who care so deeply about other people. I finally felt like I was doing something worthwhile, that I was doing something right.”

As a member of the JAG program, she is also required to keep track of the students for one full year after they graduate to make sure that they have the resources to be successful, and to check on how they’re doing emotionally now that they are out of school.

“I can’t help but care,” she said. “These kids don’t always have people to tell them that they care about them or that they’re proud of them, and if I can sit there and say to them ‘hey, thank you for being here on time,’ and that’s the nicest thing they hear all week, then I’ll tell them everyday."

Some of the resources Corley provides for all Pioneer students, not only JAG students, is information about job announcements, scholarships, community service opportunities, information about the JAG council members, and pamphlets from local college and trade schools.

“Most of these kids are so mature and so motivated to have a life outside of high school that they work really hard in the program to develop those adult life skills,” she said.

She also talks to the students about when it's okay to resign in a job. Some of the discussions they've had is about the fact that because they are young and inexperienced in the work force, there might be people who are going to try and take advantage of them, and that it's important to now their self-worth.

A new initiative Corley has started at Pioneer's JAG program is teaching students about money management, through the process of fundraising.

This year, the goal will be that the JAG students will coordinate raising funds so they can go on a field trip at the end of the year, either to Six Flags, Disneyland, or wherever they choose so long as it's within their budget.

While the students are benefitting from their new life skills education, the staff members like Corley guiding them are changed as well.

"They’ve saved me in more ways than one," she said. "I don’t know where I’d be without them.”

To learn more about Nevada’s JAG program, visit http://www.jagnv.org