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What Happens When Employers Help Build the Pathway? Insights from Dr. Jeff Moorhouse

By Jodi Tandet, Content Marketing Lead

Preparing students for life after high school requires a clear understanding of the opportunities waiting for them. That means connecting education to the needs of employers, helping students see where those opportunities exist, and building pathways that allow them to move toward those careers. 

In the second episode of Redesigning Readiness, Dr. Joseph Goins talks with Dr. Jeff Moorhouse, corporate director for secondary programs at Ballad Health and director of P20 initiatives at East Tennessee State University. A former high school principal, K-12 educator, and superintendent, Moorhouse brings decades of experience in education along with his current perspective from the employer side. 

Their conversation centers on a workforce challenge in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia and the career pathway Ballad Health developed in response. Here are some of the top insights. 

The employer needs to be in the room

Moorhouse has seen many schools and postsecondary institutions work together to create career pathways, with employers only joining the conversation later, if it all.  

He describes a refreshingly different dynamic—a more powerful one—when an employer brings the education community together around a specific workforce problem. 

“Where the magic happens is when you can get all three of those in the room at the same time.”

— Dr. Jeff Moorhouse, on collaborations between K-12 education, high education, and the workforce 

One such problem Ballad Health faced: The healthcare system’s nursing shortage. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shortage, creating a heavy reliance on contract labor. 

In response, Ballad Health focused on growing local talent, connecting students to healthcare careers within their communities. They created a program that allows students graduate high school with an LPN credential, enter the workforce, and continue their education if they choose. 

Building a pathway means building something new

The program is part of a five-year Bloomberg Philanthropies grant focused on innovative healthcare high school models. Six school districts and seven high schools are currently participating. 

Getting there required schools and partners to work through systems that had been established over many years. Moorhouse emphasizes the importance of relationships and shared resources in making that work possible. 

“We don’t win unless we all win.”

— Dr. Jeff Moorhouse 

The participating schools also share what they learn with one another, with the goal of making successful practices more widely available. 

The pathway was “backwards designed,” as Dr. Moorhouse puts it. The partners first determined what the high school experience and career pathway needed to look like, then used that information to introduce the opportunity to middle school students. 

Start with opportunities that exist locally

Crucially, the model involves helping students understand the jobs available in their own communities. 

Ballad Health uses P2C Labor Market Navigator tools to show students real local opportunities, which helps students explore what careers exist, where those jobs are located, and how their interests might connect to them. 

Moorhouse describes the question he wants students to consider: “What are the opportunities for their future that exist here locally?” 

That exploration also allows students to find pathways that fit their interests. A student who dislikes blood and prefers analytical or manufacturing work can pursue a different path from someone who is drawn to caring for people directly. 

The approach gives students room to consider healthcare as one part of a much larger set of possibilities. 

Give students a purpose for what they're learning

Dr. Moorhouse connects the success of the new nursing pathway to students understanding why their coursework matters to their goals. 

“If you give students the opportunity, like if they’re connected to a purpose as to why they’re taking the course, they’ll rise to the level of expectation.”

— Dr. Jeff Moorhouse 

That purpose can involve seeing how a credential connects to a career and how that career connects to the community where a student lives. 

The pathway is designed to give students an opportunity to graduate with a credential that can lead directly into the workforce while also creating options for continued education. Moorhouse calls this model “Career by Senior Year,” with economic mobility built into the pathway through opportunities to continue toward an associate, bachelor’s, or advanced degree. 

Career pathways need people, too

Before schools can successfully redesign instruction, Dr. Daggett says educators need to develop a deeper understanding of how dramatically the workplace and society are changing. 

Then, rather than focusing first on those who are most resistant to change, he recommends starting with the educators who are ready to experiment. 

His “top third” approach is straightforward: find the educators who are willing to try something different, support them, and give them opportunities to see what career-connected, future-focused instruction can look like in practice. 

Those educators become change agents. As their classrooms begin to look differentand as students become more engaged—other educators can see the possibilities for themselves. 

“Show them … show how them the classrooms, what they look like that are really doing it,” he advises. In other words, seeing is believing. 

And importantly, Dr. Daggett argues that the biggest shift may not be the curriculum itself, but instructional practice and instructional design: how educators help students apply what they’re learning. 

“Student–to–student relationship carries more weight than us as adults saying, ‘You can do it.’”

— Dr. Moorhouse, on the value of peer role models 

Employers should examine their own systems

he new nursing pathway also required Ballad Health to reconsider some of its own policies. 

Students need more than 400 clinical hours to complete the LPN pathway before graduation, but healthcare facilities traditionally had age restrictions that made this difficult (if not impossible) for high school students. Ballad changed its policy so students could begin defined roles at age 16 and complete their clinical requirements. 

“When a student has demonstrated the ability to meet the standard, we know we need to let them get through faster and not be held up because of arbitrary numbers or arbitrary dates that just serve to slow the pipeline down,” says Dr. Moorhouse. 

Solve the problem together

The pandemic intensified the nursing crisis, and existing processes could not address the scale of the problem. That created an opening for people to try something different. 

Moorhouse encourages superintendents and other education leaders to bring employers into similar conversations and ask a straightforward question: What workforce problem needs to be solved, and how can each partner contribute? 

He also emphasizes the connection between employer needs and student opportunity: 

“Unless there’s employer benefit, is there really student benefit? Because if the student comes out with the credential or the opportunity, but there’s not a job for them, has it been really a student benefit?”

— Dr. Jeff Moorhouse 

His vision brings employers, K-12, and higher education into the same conversation around a shared problem: 

“What’s the crisis, what’s the problem that we need to solve, and how can we all work together to solve it?” 

When those partners bring their resources together, Moorhouse sees an opportunity to create pathways that help students move into careers, help employers develop talent, and strengthen local communities. 

For rural communities especially, that work can create more opportunities for students to build careers close to home. 

Listen to the full episode... and more!

Hear the complete conversation between Dr. Joseph Goins and Dr. Jeff Moorhouse on Redesigning Readiness here or wherever you get your podcasts.  

Explore the series: Visit the Redesigning Readiness hub for more episodes, resources, and insights on helping students connect what they’re learning today with the opportunities of tomorrow.  

Want to be notified when a new episode drops? Sign up for email reminders and be the first to know when the next conversation is available. 

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