At the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, the Wentzville R-IV School District introduced the new college and career ready program, Xello. It is a program that is designed to give students options for future career paths based on their personality and interests.

“Xello is everything future ready; it starts the process of planning for your future. It’s not just necessarily for college-bound students, it’s future ready for everybody. It’s helping students find a plan after high school, so whatever that is for you,” college career counselor and A plus coordinator Amy Green said.

Xello is open to all students from seventh through 12th grade to assist in planning for their futures. This could mean a schedule that aligns with one’ future career path. After using this program, it is expected that students know what they want to do and have a plan and purpose coming straight out of graduation, according to Green.

“I think it’s good to help students narrow down what they want to do in their life and to give them some other options that they [haven’t] thought of yet… and what they might be best at when they’re older,” junior Kalil Conway said.

Aside from just helping students figure out what job or career field they want to go into, Xello can help them generate portfolios and resumes that will help get them there according to the Xello website. It gives students a sort-of “one-stop shop” to log education and life experiences that can allow them to build a presentable and realistic profile of themselves that other colleges and businesses can see.

“The long range plan for Xello is that kids start planning their future. [They] will create a four year plan in Xello… and this year moving forward be able to select their classes through Xello for their next school year.” Green said.

Although many see the potential in Xello, not everybody does.

“I don’t think there’s any need for it, and it’s boring,” freshman Joee Schrick said.

To discover personalities and interests, Xello has a series of assessments that calculate a students’ personality and learning styles, their skills and careers that would best suit them based on their answers. Once all the tests are completed, a profile will be created for each student and he or she will have assignments posted to keep their knowledge sharp and their profile updated. Even though it has been tedious for some students, it appears that the majority is benefiting.

“I think it’s pretty helpful, and it helped me think of careers that I might want to do,” freshman Saren Stanley said.

Green said the district plans to grow the Xello program in January when they launch their new pathways program. Students have only been using this program for a few months, and staff are already seeing positive results and more preparedness among students at Timberland. 

“It definitely helped a lot of people think about what they wanted to do,” Stanley said.