Happy New Year
From the staff of CollegeRecruiter.com to the students, graduates, schools, employers, and other users of CollegeRecruiter.com, we wish you a happy, healthy, new year.
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From the staff of CollegeRecruiter.com to the students, graduates, schools, employers, and other users of CollegeRecruiter.com, we wish you a happy, healthy, new year.
Six unionized members of an industrial plant ridiculed their supervisor on Facebook. The derogatory postings were made using personal equipment during personal hours. The employer moved to terminate them. Their union stepped in and saved their jobs but two of the employees ended up with one-week suspensions and the other four received letters of reprimand in their personnel files. Ridiculous? Not even the union would say so.
"This is a growing problem and employees have to be very, very careful of what they do," said Robert Ziegler, president of Local 832 United Food and Commercial Workers in Winnipeg, Canada. "This all falls into the category of off-duty conduct and under precedent and case law, all that can be held against you and our members can be disciplined and even fired. If an employer can prove that anything you've done affects the reputation of the company or created an atmosphere where other workers will not want to work with you, then the employer can discipline that employee," added Ziegler.
Keep in mind that this case arose in in Canada where labor laws are more socialist than they are in the United States. Also keep in mind that these statements are being made by a union official. There's no doubt, folks, that statements made on-line on sites such as Facebook, MySpace, blogs, etc. have the potential of negatively affecting the reputation of employers and if an employee makes such a statement, they can be disciplined or even terminated.
It amazes me how many employees do not realize that it is simply not acceptable to trash talk their supervisors, co-workers, or employers on Facebook, MySpace, or any other social networking site. Many would never consider writing such statements on a placard and walking around with it like a picketer yet they don't think twice about writing derogatory and sometimes outright defamatory statements on-line.
"Employees need to understand that discriminatory or harassing blog or web entries that they make regarding co-workers may well be considered in the same vein as if they actually made those comments verbally in the workplace," wrote Donna Seale in her blog, Human Rights in the Workplace. She added that "employers need to understand that just as they can be found vicariously liable for failing to take reasonable steps to stop harassing verbal comments in the workplace, so too they can potentially be found liable for failing to put a stop to similar types of comments that are occurring on sites like Facebook if they knew or ought to have known they were being made."
So what should employers do to protect themselves? Seale recommends a three-fold approach:
One of the greatest changes that I've seen since we became engaged in the world of college recruiting in 1995 is the rise of the formalized internship program. In 1995, few organizations had interns and those who did rarely made good use of them. It was unusual when you heard about an organization that looked upon its interns as strategic resources and converted even a bare majority to permanent, full-time employees. My position then is the same as it is now: if your organization does not convert at least 75 percent then you are failing your interns and your shareholders.
But how does an organization without an internship program or with a failing internship program reach such a goal? One way is to pick up a copy of Total Internship Management: The Employer's Guide to Building the Ultimate Internship Program and implementing the many views and tips that it includes. The book by Richard Bottner of Intern Bridge, Inc. is based on the New England Internship Study, which was one of the largest internship research projects ever undertaken. The book also is based on the real-life experiences of more than 6,000 college students and 240 employer organizations. It walks you through the steps from understanding if your organization is ready to start recruiting to properly evaluating your existing interns to identifying which ones should receive offers for permanent employment to retaining those future employees.
One of the most frequently asked questions that I get from bloggers is where do I find the time to write as much as I do and where do I get all of the ideas to write about? Many and perhaps most bloggers struggle to find ideas and even if they have the right ideas they struggle to find the time to write the articles. So their blogs languish and may only be updated every few weeks. Blogs that are neglected like that tend not to generate loyal readers and don't rank as highly in the search engines as they could because they aren't as active and don't have as much content.
So where does a typical blogger get more ideas and more time? Rather than trying to find the ideas and time to write your own blog entries each and every time, why not allow guest writers to take some of the load off of your shoulders? By having guest writers, you'll get free career-related content for your blog and the more content you have, the more pages you create. The more pages you have, the more likely it is that you'll have the right keyword phrase that someone types into Google, Yahoo, MSN, or any of the search engines and that will generate free traffic for your site. But even if they don't go to that new page, web sites with more pages rank higher in the search results because the search engines believe that larger sites are more likely to have the information being sought by the people using the search engines.
But where do you find guest writers and great, free, career-related content? From CollegeRecruiter.com. Well, sort of. We recently created the Recruiting Blogswap as a way for bloggers and other authors of career-related articles to provide those articles for free to sites that want additional content. When you publish or add one of those articles to your site, that will create a link to the site of the author and that improves their search engine rankings and might even result in a few clicks. That's the value to them. The value to you is that you get great, free content to run on your site and that improves your search engine rankings.
RecruitingBlogswap.com is a free service from CollegeRecruiter.com. Nice, huh?
One of the reasons that I love working and hanging out with national account executive Mike Palmquist is that he's got a great sense of humor. For example, he loves the killer rabbit scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Live. So it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise to me that he found a career-related blog article that used that scene as an analogy by comparing co-workers to killer rabbits.
How can co-workers be like killer rabbits? Well, they come into your life as seemingly harmless and even friendly but then morph into horrible and frightening creatures. Unless you're an incredible judge of character, and most of us think we are but actually aren't, take it slow so that you can better understand if they're a mere rabbit or a killer rabbit.
The Minnesota Headhunter has a great blog article on how parents who hover over their kids and therefore can be described as being helicopter parents are getting a bad rap.
As a volunteer at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities), he has a lot of contact with Gen Y college students and their parents and feels that they can do their kids a lot more harm than good by giving them rope but not enough to hang themselves with. That's a great analogy and his advice is especially meaningful because it comes from someone in the recruiting world who works both with college students and their parents yet is neither a college student nor a parent. He's knowledgeable yet objective. And he's got a lot of wisdom.
John Sumser's Recruiting Roadshow Unconference was born in my fair city, Minneapolis, this past summer. I was fortunate enough to be one of the original planners (although my role was fairly limited) and speakers and then I was also fortunate enough to be one of the presenters at the second installment, which took place in Atlanta. I presented remotely via Skype Video at the third installment, which took place in Dallas. And now I see that there will be at least five and probably nine or ten installments in 2008. Bravo, John!
If you have not yet had the pleasure of attending, plan to do so. Virtually all of the attendees are not regular attendees of the paid conferences organized by Kennedy Information, ERE, NACE, etc. Those shows are great but quite different. The Unconferences are more informal and the presenters are there because they want to give back to the recruiting community rather than to sell from the podium, receive a speaking fee, or both. Now I'm not saying that all or even most of the presenters at the paid conferences have such dastardly motivations. Most don't. But some do. And I'm not saying that the Unconferences will somehow be able to prevent that from happening at their events. But so far it hasn't. And hopefully it won't.
So make plans if your organization has a tight budget or if you want to keep abreast of the latest trends in recruiting or both.
By Tahjia Chapman
Marketing yourself and your e-portfolio (also known as a personal portfolio) is one career goal worth planning. If you want to get your dream job, place your e-portfolio before prospective employers and possible clients. You may not be familiar with internet marketing, but we have you covered. We have compiled a list of the top five methods of increasing traffic, visibility, and importance of an e-portfolio for recent college grads and students. You must work on these tips to build a foundation then add more link building strategies for more exposure.
Why should you focus on marketing your e-portfolio?
Your e-portfolio is one marketing tool that sells your skills to an employer. An e-portfolio places you before an audience with information of who you are, why they should know, and how they can contact you for job interviews. It is important to use your e-portfolio as an introduction for prospective employers by placing your most valuable work before their eyes. The marketing plan for your e-portfolio will include all five marketing strategies to gain interests from future employers.
Top Five Ways To Market Your E-Portfolio
Are you ready to use these marketing strategies for your e-portfolio? Great. Now, register for a free e-portfolio at CollegeRecruiter.com. Your portfolio can include a cover letter, resume, and links to other work as well as questions and answers to interview questions. In order to stand out, please complete a questions and answers page for prospective employers. It gives them a glimpse of who you are by your in-depth answers, examples, and references.
Bringing It All Together
Your e-portfolio combined with our marketing strategies will work well for other websites or online blogs. Recent grads and students can take advantage of these tips today by implementing them into their job search. If you think this was all we had to offer, I suggest you visit http://www.collegerecruiter.com/resumes/ for more information on cover letter and resume writing articles to spice up your e-portfolio. We understand the importance of snagging the perfect job and we are here to help.
-- Tahjia Chapman is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to CollegeRecruiter.com.
I just found out from Jason Davis at RecruitingBlogs.com that this blog was nominated as one of the best recruiting blogs. Voting begins today. If you like the work that we do, please vote for the CollegeRecruiter.com Blog.
I'm occasionally sent a book to review by a publisher. Some aren't worth writing about, many are, and a few are really inspiring. Into the third category falls The Leisure Economy: How Changing Demographics, Economics and Generational Attitudes Will Reshape Our Lives and Industries.
The author, Linda Nazareth, walks the reader walks the reader through the changes which are already starting to take place in our society as the massive and workaholic Baby Boomer generation slows down and many retire. These workers are largely being replaced in the workplace by Gen Y, also known as Millennials, also known as today's college students and recent graduates. Gen Y's priorities are quite different from those of Boomers. The shorthand description that I like to use is that Baby Boomers live to work and Gen Y'ers work to live.
That subtle yet profound difference in attitude brings with it a radical shift in priorities. Tomorrow's workers will refuse to regularly work 50 and often work 60 hour weeks and therefore will have far more time to prepare home cooked meals yet likely won't earn as much. They'll have more time to spend with their kids yet won't have the financial resources to have each of their kids in three extracurricular activities.
If you find generational differences as interesting as I do, you'll want to pick up a copy of The Leisure Economy: How Changing Demographics, Economics and Generational Attitudes Will Reshape Our Lives and Industries.
What goes from zero to number two in a year? If you guessed the Dallas Cowboys then you've got a good imagination but you're way off base. No, what goes from zero to number two in a year is our targeted SMS (cell phone text messaging) campaign product because a year ago we did virtually zero dollars in sales with it and it will close 2007 as our number two product behind targeted email campaigns.
One of the most frequent questions that we get from potential clients of our SMS product is how have other organizations used it with success. Here are some examples of campaigns delivered either by CollegeRecruiter.com or one of our network partners:
One of the only certainties with on-line marketing is that there are no certainties. It is very fluid in the sense that almost everything changes all of the time. That makes on-line marketing fun for those of us immersed in it but at times frustrating.
Fortunately, many organizations are constantly studying the on-line marketing space and sharing their findings. One aspect that is often studied is the best day to deploy a targeted email campaign where the list owner, such as CollegeRecruiter.com, delivers an email on behalf of a client. We deliver multiple campaigns per week and sometimes per day to tens of thousands and sometimes even hundreds of thousands of candidates. All have double opted in, meaning that they signed up to receive the emails and then confirmed that request. All can remove themselves from the list with a single click. Both are the highest standards in the industry. But I digress.
For years, we've been advising our clients that the best day to deliver a targeted email campaign is Tuesday followed closely by Monday afternoons and Wednesdays. It appears that may be changing. A new survey indicates that clicks are the highest on Saturdays followed by Wednesdays and Thursdays. The number opened (read) on Saturdays was so low, however, that it is incomparable to the rest of the week. The best day and time were Wednesday afternoons.
So the best day to deliver a targeted email now appears to be Wednesday followed by Mondays. As with all of these studies, there are huge variations from client-to-client and even campaign-to-campaign so what is best for one client or even one type of campaign for a particular client may not be the best for another client or another campaign for a particular client.
We will continue to recommend Monday afternoons, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays but rather than recommending Tuesdays first, we will recommend Wednesday afternoons first followed by Monday afternoons and Tuesdays. We will also continue to recommend that clients test, test, and test some more.
When Georgia State Professor Dave McDonald first took his computer programming class into the virtual world Second Life this fall, he wasn't sure what to expect. What he found was a bit chaotic. Students flew around and talked over one another as he tried to lead them.
"Every time we meet (in world), something goes wrong," said McDonald, associate professor and the director of Emerging Technologies for the J. Mack Robinson College of Business. "And that's the learning experience." McDonald is not alone. Since Linden Labs' Second Life has come into the mainstream, universities are increasingly exploring the benefits it holds for education. And many teachers are experiencing hiccups as they attempt to transition their lectures from the real classroom to the virtual world.
To help educators get over the virtual hurdles, Georgia State Technology Project Manager Paula Christopher is creating a first-of-its-kind instructor support island. On a large whiteboard on the wall in her office, Christopher is laying the framework for her island, labeling offices and auditoriums and more unique meeting places such as sandboxes and bird nests. "Teaching in this kind of a world is different than just going in front of a lectern and teaching to your students, so we want to make sure they know what they're getting into," said Christopher, who works in the eLearning Group of Georgia State's Educational Technology Services.
Christopher plans to purchase the island by the end of the year and have it completed by summer. It will include tutorials on where to get teaching ideas, what islands to visit, how to dress an avatar, and how to build and manipulate objects, among other Second Life topics. Professors like McDonald will also be lending their experience to the project. For example, McDonald this fall asked his students, about 13 classes of 45 students each, to develop a list of covenants to govern behavior during class sessions. That list will be available on the island as a guide for other educators. "When you have a large number of students and you have no code of conduct and no orderly way of doing things, everyone talks at the same time," McDonald said.
Although more than 300 universities already have a presence in Second Life, Georgia State's instructor support island could be the first of its kind, Christopher said. It also could end up being one island in a Georgia State archipelago that will eventually make up a virtual campus. Stephen Harmon, chair of learning technologies in Georgia State's College of Education, is working on a virtual K-12 school island and hopes to have it running by the summer. There, Georgia State pre-service teachers would take turns as the teacher, while their peers assume the role of students. "We hope to focus on particular problem issues and allow the pre-service teacher to experience those before they get into a classroom," Harmon said. "We hope to cram a decade's worth of experience into a semester."
Similarly, the Robinson College of Business now has two Second Life islands, one purchased through a grant and the other donated by a faculty member. In the future, Georgia State students may have an opportunity to build businesses on the islands, gaining real-world experience without the financial risk of the real world, McDonald said. As they work to develop their islands, Georgia State educators like Harmon will continue to take their students into Second Life and show them the educational opportunities already in the world. For example, Harmon and his class this spring will visit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's island, where students can learn about meteorology by grabbing onto a weather balloon and floating above the atmosphere. "The idea is to put learning into a real context," Harmon said. "Second Life allows people to build things in a simulated context, so learning can occur in a meaningful way. You learn by participating."
Small businesses can leverage the recruitment process by integrating successful internship programs into their companies. The process is simple: develop an internship outline with objectives, provide students with career related experience, and recognize students whom excel within the program. The list is quite short, but the most innovative internships withhold these three necessities. Small businesses can use an internship to create a funnel of talented recruiters for future employment with their company.
Develop a program with learning objectives.
The first step to integrating a successful internship is by developing a program with learning objectives. While planning, the company must address its needs by surveying current staff of strengths and weaknesses. The survey will pinpoint aspects of the small business that needs improvement through human resource’s recruiting efforts. The best way to outline learning objectives (or milestones) is by evaluating the staff in each department of the small business. Without an understanding what the small business needs, the recruiting process may become blurred. With this said, successful internships must provide a clear objective so recruits experience career options the company offers.
Provide students with career experience.
Innovative internships provide recruits with real career experience within their company departments.
Small business internships inevitably provide project management opportunities related to student career objectives. The responsibility of the program is to yield a successful intern whom loves the work they pursue. A love for the work will ultimately develop a love for the small business’ culture and career options. Successful internships ‘mold’ their recruits by treating them like real employees instead of ‘temp’ staff.
More information on this strategy is available in The Best Practices for Creating and Managing a Successful Internship Program white paper available at CollegeRecruiter.com. In the white paper, we outline the importance of allowing students to work independently on projects, managing real deadlines, and inputting their ideas to add fresh ideas to develop loyalty for a company. Small businesses can create loyalty within their internship programs by inviting successful students back to their program.
Recognize talented students within the program.
Small businesses should recognize students whom excel within their internship programs. Make sure the recruits know they are welcomed and wanted within the company by inviting them back. One indication of a loyal intern or prospective employee is the friendships the recruit develops on the job. Keep in touch with successful candidates through e-mail, post cards, or simple letters of interest. Students whom receive recognition from a company usually share their experiences with others – this builds the small businesses brand among college campuses. By recognizing the student, the small business will reinforce their opportunities into the student’s career objectives.
-- Article by Tahjia Chapman, freelance writer for CollegeRecruiter.com.
Do you want to attract more visitors to your career site but don't have the budget for a big advertising or public relations campaign? No problem.
One of the most efficient and effective ways to attract highly targeted visitors to any web site is by increasing the number of visitors who find you in the organic (free) results of search engines such as Google and Yahoo. But how do you increase the number of those visitors? Make your web site come up higher in the results so more of your targeted visitors will see your site and click through. Two of the best ways of making your site come up higher in the search results are to add more content to your site and to increase the number of links to your site.
The Recruiting Blogswap can help your career site come up higher in the search engine results because you can use it to increase the amount of content on your site and the number of links to your site. The Recruiting Blogswap is a free service of job board CollegeRecruiter.com but used by a wide variety of career sites. Some of the career sites want to attract candidates with years of experience, with certain skills, or from certain geographic areas. Other career sites which participate want to attract human resource professionals, hiring managers, or others on the employer side of the desk. But all of them use the Recruiting Blogswap to increase the number of targeted visitors to their site and they don't pay a dime to do so.
If you have career-related articles, then sign up with the Recruiting Blogswap as an author. Your articles will automatically include a byline that will tell the readers about your organization and will link to your web site. Those articles will run on recruiting blogs which have signed up to publish articles written by you and other authors. When your articles run on those other sites, they will link to your site and that link will be in close proximity to the description of your organization in your byline. Google and the other search engines will infer from the proximity of the link to those keywords that your site is a good source for those who are searching for that information so your site will be moved up in the search engine results when people search on those keywords.
If you want to add more content to your site, then sign up with the Recruiting Blogswap as a publisher. You'll receive articles from authors and may publish them on your site. If you choose not to, then the articles that you're sent will be re-assigned to the next publisher in line. You're never under an obligation to publish an article so you don't have to worry about being asked to run an article that will be of no interest to your visitors. And by adding more articles to your site, when Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines find those articles, they'll include them in their search results and will direct your most desired visitors to your site when they search for that type of content. Also, when you add more pages to your site, the search engines rank all of your pages higher as sites with more pages tend to be more likely to have the information being searched for.
Sound good? I thought so. What's the catch? None. All of the participants get something of value. The authors get links back to their sites from the web sites of the publishers so the web sites of the authors appear higher in the search engine results. The publishers get more pages so their web sites appear higher in the search engines results. CollegeRecruiter.com gets a very short blurb in each article and archives a copy of each article on our site so our site appears higher in the search engine results.
Want to sign up as an author, publisher, or both? Great. Go to RecruitingBlogswap.com and get started today.
Nice to see that a poll that we ran showed that college students who are hunting for internships and recent graduates who are looking for entry level jobs and other career opportunities are more optimistic in December than they were in November. Perhaps all of the doom and gloom in the mainstream media is overblown.
One of the benefits of our partnership with CareerTV is that I've been able to learn a lot about how employers can and should use recruitment videos to help them hire the best possible candidates. So I was delighted when I recently read in Interbiznet's Electronic Recruiting News some great tips from Helen Luttemo, Director of Public Relations for CareerTV:
I was honored to be offered the opportunity to be part of the presentation by Bill Vick for this week's Dallas Recruiting Roadshow Unconference. Bill, who is always looking for new and better ways of getting the job done, used webcams and Skype Video to record the segment with me and the other "panelists."
For my segment, Bill interviewed me about how recruiters can and should use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Couldn't be at the Dallas event? No problem. Here's my presentation:
One of the skills that is critical to the success of any entrepreneur or intrapreneur is the ability to see around corners. That is, to be better able to predict the relevant future than your competitors. Those who have the skill are at a huge advantage as they are able to better position themselves and their organizations than are their competitors. Corporate recruiters who want to peer around the corner to see what practices will soon be popular need only look at what the various branches of the U.S. military do, including the U.S. Army.
For decades, the Army has used the promise of money for college as a recruiting tool. But starting this January, their message will change. Rather than promising tens of thousands of dollars in money for college, the Army will instead promise up to $40,000 towards the purchase of a home or the creation of a business. And rather than directing the messages at the potential enlistees, the Army will direct a significant portion of the messages at the parents and other adult "influencers" of the enlistees. "If you want to get a soldier, you have to go through mom, and moms want to know what kind of future their children will have when they leave the Army," Lt. Col. Jeff Sterling, the program's architect, told the Wall Street Journal.
These $40,000 bonuses come on top of the $20,000 quick ship enlistment bonuses that they have been offering for months, so an enlistee that is willing to leave for basic training within weeks or even days has the potential to receive up to $60,000 in bonuses. That's pretty enticing for a lot of folks, especially those who are considering starting their own business once they are discharged.
Let's talk a little about the use of the bonuses for homes and small businesses rather than college degrees. Why would the Army do that? Wouldn't it prefer to enlist those who want to make the Army a career rather than a stepping stone into a new home or business? Sure, but with the difficulty that the Army is having right now, any qualified enlistee is a great enlistee. Also, the priorities of this generation are different than those of previous generations. One quarter of high school students are dropping out and a much higher percentage of college males drop out than do females. The Army is clearly aware of these trends and not just because they read this college recruiting blog.
The Army was using our targeted email product before most corporate recruiters even knew what targeted emails were. The Army was sending cell phone text messages to candidates before most corporate recruiters knew that they could text thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of candidates using a double opt-in list like we have. And now the Army is targeting a generation of males (and a smaller percentage of females) that seems to be disinclined to go to college or stay in college but very inclined to start their own businesses.
The Army isn't going to change this generation nor should it try. But it needs to try to successfully recruit this generation if it is going to succeed in meeting its missions and in order to do that the Army understands that it needs to adapt. Will your organization adapt or will it fail to meet its missions for a lack of talent?
I recently read a note posted to a recruiting discussion list saying, in part, that candidates who have time to be active on social networking sites aren't working and aren't of interest to him. I couldn't disagree with the author more on this point.
I suspect that the author was thinking about the typical Baby Boomer or Gen X candidate when he was writing his post. But 95 percent (that's the actual number) of college students and recent graduates are active users of Facebook. As these candidates progress through their careers, they will continue to be active users of social networking sites because those sites are as much a part of their lives as is TV for Gen X'ers. Even the busiest of Gen X'ers watches TV and the same holds true for Gen Y'ers: even the busiest of them uses social networking sites.
People, we can think that sites like LinkedIn and Facebook aren't making a difference or aren't important to the candidates that we serve and therefore us or we can understand that we have reached a tipping point in how this new generation interacts with each other. This isn't about play anymore than using the telephone is about play. This is about their basic connections with each other.
They don't email each other or even instant message each other nearly as much as they did even a year ago. Now if you want to connect with a friend, you're going to log into Facebook and email or instant message through Facebook. The reasons are numerous, but one is that Facebook emails are hardly ever spams as they're easily traceable and take a bit of effort to send. Gen Y has figured out how deal with email overload, even if us "oldies" haven't and maybe never will.
Either embrace this new and often better way of communicating or confine yourself to only serving a dwindling number of Boomers and X'ers.
One in four high school students in the United States drops out or otherwise fails to graduate, a percentage which is considerably higher than many people think. That discrepancy is due in large part to contradictory but less reliable statistics issued by many governmental and non-governmental agencies.
The less reliable statistics are based upon the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) and the National Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data (CCD) surveys. The CPS shows recent drop-out rates at about 10 percent, down some 40 percent for this Gen Y versus the previous Gen X drop-out rates. The CCD shows that high school completion rates, which are the flip side of the drop-out rates, have stayed steady at about 75 percent for decades.
According to a recent University of Minnesota study, the differences between the two studies are due largely to how they collect their data. CPS bases its findings on individuals responding to its surveys while the CCD bases its reports on administrative records. The CPS self-reporting system is considered by the University researchers as being less reliable.
I suspect that the continuing large number of drop-outs is somewhat different with Gen Y than Gen X, Baby Boomers, or previous generations. As is starting to be reported, a much larger percentage of Gen Y men drop-out of college than do their female counterparts. Many male college students are dropping out to start their own businesses, some of which will succeed but many of which will fail. The result has been a significant increase in the percentage of Gen Y females who graduate versus their male classmates. If the dropouts for entrepreneurial reasons are being seen at the college level, why shouldn't that same attitude be trickling down to the high schools?