Once a student becomes a freshman, the common question of “What are you going to do after you graduate?” slowly starts getting brought up more and more. There may be a select few students who know exactly what major or school they want to attend, but the majority simply don’t know.
Enter SchooLinks, a platform introduced in the spring of 2024, and the ‘25-’26 school year is its first full year of development.
The overall goal of this platform, and its predecessor Naviance, is to make post-high school plans as simple and easy for students, whether they want to go to college, the trades, or other fields. This new platform delivers in ways Naviance did not, especially for administrators and counselors using the program.
“For a little background, all districts in the state needed to implement the statewide PaCE (Post-secondary and Career Expectations) Framework by July 2025,” said OH Assistant Principal Kate Lippoldt. “This framework aims to make sure all students have knowledge and experiences that support career exploration and development, financial literacy, and post-secondary exploration prior to graduating high school.”
The website is set up in an easy way that helps students know exactly where to look for the information they want to observe. There is a Career Center, where students can look at career information, depending on what state they are in, and a College Search section, where students can see plenty of information about admission rates, yearly costs, and degree types.
“SchooLinks feels cleaner and easier to navigate, so students usually pick it up faster,” said OH Counselor Keith Hebert. “For counselors, the tools that connect to college applications are also smoother. Things like transcript requests and application tracking are more straightforward, which saves a lot of time and confusion.”
This cleaner platform has translated into more student logins, which total 16,700 at OH alone.
Another helpful feature is a To-Do List where students can see the assignments posted from their school of requirements which is specifically for seniors and their post-secondary school plans.
“We can run reports on pretty much any feature students would use SchooLinks for. For example, we ran a report on students’ favorited careers and had teachers use that information to invite students to a career-related field trip,” said Lippoldt.
It’s important that our school board can see these results so they can help their students succeed in the field they want to pursue in the future. But there are some downsides to the platform. As nothing is perfect, and there are two major flaws I see from a student perspective.
First, there is an overwhelming amount of information. Counselor Hebert agrees. “There’s a ton of information, and it may overwhelm students,” he said.
Second, we do not yet have a way for all students to deeply understand the platform and use this new system.
“The platform doesn’t guide you step-by-step, so without school-wide structure, it’s easy to feel lost or unsure on where to start,” Hebert confirmed. “And since [OH] is still in the early stages of learning the platform, everyone is still trying to figure out how to use it in a meaningful way.”
Overall, the program is an improvement, though, and early feedback is positive from building leaders. “SchooLinks is new and upcoming, and we’re very excited to see how far this platform can soar. It’s informational, easily accessible, and an overall clean product. OH staff and students are working hard to learn the new program and help with any questions you may have,” Hebert concluded.
Assistant Principal Lippoldt is confident this platform will be positive one long-term, and I agree.
“Our staff is learning about SchooLinks along with the students,” Lippoldt said, “and we’ve had really good staff engagement with the tools and information available.”
For students, planning their future is only a link away.
I love to read and write poetry, I'm a first year reporter in 11th grade. You can contact me by emailing 42Fifty@sd308.org and putting my name in the subject line. We welcome comments on our articles and feedback on our publication!
