There is a growing consensus that today’s K-12 students need to be more future-ready than ever before. But making plans for the future can be a daunting task for students. While some know what they want to do when they graduate, others need more guidance.

Our latest tool is designed to support college and career readiness.

The award-winning Kuder Navigator® – an online education and career planning system that helps students dream big and plan accordingly – now offers a configurable Graduation Plan (Grad Plan) feature that establishes a framework for students to develop college and career readiness (CCR) action plans from sixth to twelfth grade. Navigator’s Grad Plan also provides school counselors with a CCR implementation and accountability tool to meet local and state reporting requirements.

Kuder developed the tool based on the growing trend across the nation where states are including CCR as a component of their K-12 education policy strategies. To measure how well their schools prepare students for life after high school, these states are establishing their own CCR indicators to track students’ progress.

“Since CCR measures vary by state, CCR indicators, the parties involved in implementation, and reporting guidelines also vary,” said Kuder Chief Product Officer Rich Gates. “That’s one of the reasons why Kuder developed the Grad Plan.”

Gates said the Grad Plan takes the stress out of the equation not only for students but also for school counselors and administrators: “The Grad Plan is all about your students, your school, your district. Rather than impose our own thinking on the specific components that should be included in a student’s Grad Plan, Kuder took the approach of making it flexible enough that it works the way our clients need it to work.”

The Grad Plan is configurable – schools can leverage it to meet district or state CCR standards. 

“The degree to which the Grad Plan can be configured is notable,” said Beth Wingert, a certified career advisor and professional development instructor for Kuder. “Clients can even rename the tool itself, so that becomes what students see. Plus, it has dynamic cards that schools can populate with their own proprietary content.”

Many of Kuder’s clients opt to assign a name to the tool to reflect statewide CCR legislative measures. For example, in Arkansas, it’s called the Student Success Plan. In Arizona, it’s the Education and Career Action Plan (ECAP).

Schools and districts can configure the Grad Plan to meet specific needs, monitor individual and group progress, and generate reports through the administrative dashboard. The Grad Plan becomes a living document for the student to set short-and long-term goals, demonstrate their CCR attainment status, and submit for review by school counselors and parents each year.

The Grad Plan typically reflects tasks, goals, and action items related to a student’s academic coursework and career aspirations. Schools can tailor the Grad Plan’s cards to include deadlines for completing CTE pathways or industry-recognized credentials, apprenticeships or extended learning opportunities. Schools can also leverage the cards to incorporate portfolio and resume development, career assessment results, career exploration activities, mastery of critical thinking, social-emotional and financial literacy competencies, to name a few.

“Students are reluctant to plan for the future,” said Wingert. “They might be skeptical about the idea of starting the process of filling out their Grad Plan. But with more states mandating CCR, Kuder feels it’s imperative to provide a high-utility tool that puts students in the driver’s seat. It lets students take control of their future – one task at a time, one academic year at a time.”


A sample Navigator Student Grad Plan. 

navigator grad plan feature example

To learn more about the Grad Plan, or to add this feature to your Navigator license, please contact info@kuder.com.