A Small School Creating Big Opportunities
Holyoke Junior/Senior High School serves about 175 students in the rural plains of northeastern Colorado. With a small teaching staff and a tight-knit community, the school embodies the strengths of small-town education: personal relationships, hands-on learning, and a shared commitment to student success.
Despite its size, Holyoke offers students experiences that rival those in much larger districts. Career exploration is a key priority, supported by dedicated counselors and teachers who ensure students don’t merely dream or speculate about their futures; they experience them. Every student completes an internship before graduation, giving them a real-world look at potential career paths.
That focus on career readiness aligns perfectly with Pathway2Careers (P2C), which geometry teacher Kali Hines integrates into her classroom.
“Our counselors have worked hard to prioritize helping students experience things from the real world before they graduate,” Hines explained. “Part of our graduation requirements are internships, so students can experience what they think they want to do and see if that’s really what they enjoy. That’s what I like about P2C; it connects math to careers.”
Making Math Meaningful Through Career Connections
P2C Math has transformed how many of Hines’s students think about geometry and its relevance to life after high school.
“That’s where my kids are excited about P2C: the career-connected part,” Hines said. “I don’t think they connected their math class with their future jobs before.”
— Kali Hines, math teacher at Holyoke Junior/Senior High School
Last year, students took P2C Math assessments at the beginning, middle, and end of the year, each incorporating Quantile® measures to monitor growth in math skills. Using guidance from P2C training, Hines drew on the Quantile® Career Database to help students connect their math progress to real-world career requirements.
This process helped students see a tangible link between what they were learning and the skills required for their future goals.
“They were really bought in,” Hines explained. “They liked seeing how they were doing—if they needed to improve to reach the job they wanted, or if they were already at or above the level they needed. It was a good reflection for them, and they were interested in it.”
Student enthusiasm was clear right at the start of the school year.
“Some of them came up to me saying, ‘Hey, isn’t there a Q score? What does that mean with all those careers?’ They were playing around in it on their own,” Hines said. “They do a lot of career exploration in our homerooms, but this is different. In P2C Math lessons, they’re specifically connecting careers to math and seeing how what we’re learning applies to real jobs, even if it’s not one they’ll have someday.”
A Trusted Resource for Teaching and Learning
After completing trainings with the P2C Customer Success team, Hines found the curriculum easy to use and highly flexible in meeting her needs. While her students primarily log in for assessments, she relies on the platform daily as a teaching resource:
“I’ve used P2C Math platform a lot from my end: to find problems, to connect lessons to real-world applications, and to help me build those connections for my students.”
— Kali Hines
Returning to geometry after more than a decade of teaching other subjects, Hines appreciated how P2C Math supported her transition. “Teaching geometry again after so long, it felt like the first time,” she said. “I needed some help, and P2C Math has been a great resource for me.”
P2C Math also helps Hines keep students on track during busy times of the year. “Our kids miss a ton of school in the spring because of extracurricular activities,” she explained. “It’s been helpful that I can assign specific lessons when they miss. They can work through it on their own and come back to me with questions.”
Hines especially values how P2C Math aligns with her teaching philosophy. “I really enjoy having kids figure things out before we name things,” she said. “Some of the lessons guide students toward the key ideas instead of just telling them what they are, and I truly appreciate that. It matches how I teach.”
Looking Ahead: Expanding Career-Connected Learning
As Holyoke Junior/Senior High School looks toward the future, Hines hopes to expand the school’s use of P2C beyond math. The school plans to reintroduce a financial literacy course next year, and the P2C Financial Literacy curriculum has caught her attention as a promising fit.
“The teacher who used to teach our finance class created her own curriculum and took it with her when she left,” Hines explained. “We didn’t have enough staff to fill that position this year, but we’ll need to next year.”
In the meantime, Holyoke educators are working to keep financial literacy alive for students in creative ways. “Since we don’t have that finance class for seniors this year, we’re trying to sprinkle in some finance lessons into our homeroom,” Hines said.
She’s optimistic that P2C Financial Literacy will make it easy for the school to bring those lessons back into the classroom. “Having a ready-to-use, flexible curriculum would be super helpful,” she said. “It would give us a strong foundation to start from and still let us make it our own.”
Ready to explore how P2C Math career-connected curriculum can boost learning, engagement, and outcomes for your students?