The Human Advantage: Preparing Rural Students for a Workforce Shaped by AI
Breakout Session
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Description
The Human Advantage: Preparing Rural Students for a Workforce Shaped by AI In an AI-driven world, students need more than just technical skills—they need the human advantage. This session explores how rural schools can embed SEL, durable skills, and AI literacy into instruction to meet workforce demands. Grounded in regional employer feedback and supported by the Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards, participants will leave with practical strategies to build future-ready systems rooted in relevance, relationships, and real-world readiness.
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the workforce, the most valuable asset our students bring isn’t technical skill alone, it’s their human advantage. Skills like communication, self-awareness, critical thinking, and adaptability, once called “soft skills”, are now essential for success in learning, life, and work. But to truly thrive, students also need access to and understanding of the technologies driving this change. This session invites rural education leaders into a broader conversation about how to prepare students for a rapidly evolving future. Together, we’ll explore how to embed human skills and AI literacy into instruction, not as one more initiative, but as a natural part of how we teach, assess, and connect learning to real-world applications. Grounded in regional employer feedback, this session will highlight the actual skills today’s workforce demands and how rural schools can respond by integrating SEL, durable skills, and digital fluency across the curriculum. The Wisconsin Career Readiness Standards (WCRS) will be shared as a tool to support this integration, not as the focus, but as a practical framework to help educators connect the dots. Participants will leave with concrete, actionable strategies to begin, or deepen, this work across their schools, with a focus on relevance, relationships, and readiness for the world ahead.
Intended Audience: This session is designed for district leaders, principals, curriculum directors, CTE coordinators, instructional coaches, and classroom educators who are ready to reimagine workforce readiness in rural schools. Whether you're just beginning this work or looking to align existing efforts, you'll leave with clarity, tools, and inspiration to move forward.
Christy Tainter - Director of Academic and Career Planning - CESA 4
Christy Tainter is a Professional School Counselor and the Director of Academic and Career Planning at CESA 4 in West Salem, Wisconsin. Before joining CESA 4, she served for more than a decade as a high school counselor in a small rural district in Western Wisconsin. That experience gave her deep, firsthand insight into the unique challenges and opportunities of supporting student mental health and career development in rural communities, with a strong focus on equity.
In her current role, Christy provides advanced training and guidance to school professionals in areas such as Academic and Career Planning, Career Readiness, Work-Based Learning, School-Based Mental Health, Social-Emotional Learning, and Equitable Multi-Level Systems of Support. She is also a leader in educational innovation, helping districts reimagine how future-ready skills, social-emotional learning, and equitable practices can be embedded into everyday instruction. Her work is grounded in a commitment to ensuring that all students, especially those in rural schools, have access to the skills, opportunities, and supports they need to thrive in school, career, and life.
