Which schools are elegible for this program?

Currently the Program is focused on any Public Schools in America’s education system with little or no financial ability to provide any kind of Electives for this critical effort. Schools with greater resources, existing Vocation & Industrial Arts programs, dedicated facilities & resources, etc. cannot engage G.U.S.T.O. for the purpose of enhancing their programs with the “free stuff” that the schools in need desperately require. We’re here to fill in the mammoth gaps that exist in this sort of disparity in student and family educational choices.

What do “career paths” lead to in the Curriculum choices?

The paths in the Curriculum Guides lead to basic entry-level skills in large groups (“Systems”) at the top of the Flow Diagrams. These are detailed in other parts of the website, but include and are not limited to:

Safety, Emergency Response, Transportation & Logistics, Health & Beauty, Home & Hospice Care, Information Technology, Recycle & Reclamation, Industrial Production, Sales & Marketing, Maintenance & Repair, Construction Techniques, Service & Hospitality, Culinary Arts, Food Service, Theater & Entertainment, Musical Instrument Care & Repair, Traditional & Industrial Ceramics, Handyman Series, Medical & Dental, Carpentry, Furniture Building & Restoring, Household Finance & Maintenance, Entrepreneur Preparation, Horticulture & Landscaping, Agriculture, and the list goes on.

(Note: All of the Program’s Systems instruction includes Safety Training in the first week of the Syllabus followed by First Aid in the second, where they learn how to use and assemble their personal First Aid Kits. Only after that do they move into the appropriate Module or Skill Set training segments of the curriculum.)

How can this be inserted into a busy school’s already packed and planned schedule?

G.U.S.T.O.’s flexibility is one of its greatest strengths. It’s ready to fit into a school’s Master Schedule as regular Electives during the school day, after school in Extended Learning, weekends, and Summer Sessions. Whenever we can get the kids.

How will this training impact the academic classes in the schools?

There should be Learning Gains across the board, especially when Collaborative Teaching gets involved. In the Program, students must strive to maintain at least “C” averages in their Core classes to participate. Tutoring is available when (for example) any students are struggling with Math at the same time they’re learning basic Measurement (fractions, decimal equivalents, etc.) in a Module or Skill Set. Similar opportunities can be found in Reading, when Students are faced with Safety Warnings, Chemical Labels, Assembly Instructions, Directions, and so forth.

(See “Who Benefits” in another section of this site. Students in this Program will tend to be more serious in their other classes, to follow certain positive behaviors that keep them on path in the whole of their scholastic careers.)

What’s going to be required of the schools during all of this?

Space. Empty rooms with electricity. Work tables & chairs if available. If not, we’ll get them. Abandoned vocational facilities in need of upgrades. Patience. Cooperation & Communication. Flexibility. Positivism. And Trust. Building Administrators at all levels must believe, and enter the Program with ALL of the beneficiaries in the front of their minds- the young people, their families, and communities. When a school says “We like the idea, but we can’t/don’t have/can’t afford…” that’s when we say, simply

“We got this!”