September 25, 2026 | Dan Weidman

Find Your Grind Announces Agreement with the NYSITCC Contract Consortium

A major step forward in helping New York districts bring Portrait of a Graduate, career readiness, and future-ready learning to life.

Find Your Grind is proud to announce that our complete Future Ready ecosystem for school districts, including career and life readiness curriculum, student wellness experiences, digital portfolios, validated micro-credentials, and career exploration tools, is now available statewide through the New York State Instructional Technology Contract Consortium (NYSITCC).

This agreement streamlines procurement, making it faster and more cost-effective for New York school districts, BOCES, and educational leaders to implement Find Your Grind through pre-negotiated, Ed Law 2-D compliant contracts.

As districts prepare to implement New York’s Portrait of a Graduate framework, this partnership provides a simplified pathway to deliver the experiences, skills, and personalized learning opportunities students need to become future-ready.

Connect with our New York team today!

Helping New York Districts Operationalize the Portrait of a Graduate

As New York districts prepare for statewide Portrait of a Graduate implementation beginning in the 2027-28 school year, many leaders are asking the same question:

How do we move from a framework on paper to meaningful student experiences that build these competencies every day?

Find Your Grind helps districts operationalize Portrait of a Graduate outcomes across grades 6-12 through personalized career exploration, self-discovery, future-ready skill development, digital portfolios, and real-world learning experiences.

Students build competencies that directly align with New York’s Portrait of a Graduate vision, including:

Critical thinking and problem-solving
Communication and collaboration
Adaptability and resilience
Self-direction and goal setting
Civic engagement and personal responsibility
Career readiness and postsecondary planning

Rather than treating these skills as standalone initiatives, Find Your Grind embeds them into a personalized student journey that helps learners discover who they are, what motivates them, and how their interests connect to future opportunities.

For districts seeking a scalable strategy to bring Portrait of a Graduate to life, Find Your Grind provides both the framework and the implementation support.

Getting Started: Career Exploration That Meets Every Student Where They Are

For New York districts, getting started with Find Your Grind can be simple. Schools can immediately engage students in meaningful career exploration through two foundational experiences, the Find Your Grind Lifestyle Assessment and Explore Engine, creating an accessible entry point for career readiness without requiring a significant implementation lift.

Start With the Student, Not the Career

Rather than assessing students and matching them to a career, Find Your Grind starts with a more relevant question: Who are you, and how do you want to live?

Find Your Grind’s proprietary Lifestyle Assessment helps students identify a unique Lifestyle based on their interests and personal strengths while building greater self-awareness through reflection and self-discovery. The goal isn’t to assign students a career based on a single assessment. It’s to give them a starting point for understanding who they are today, who they may want to become, and the possibilities they can begin exploring.

Turn Curiosity Into Exploration

From there, students enter Explore, an on-demand environment where they have the agency to follow their curiosity across interconnected Lifestyles, Career Clusters, Careers, Mentors, and Skills.

Instead of dropping students into static career profiles or prescribing a single “best-fit” occupation, Find Your Grind gives students bite-sized, interactive opportunities to discover new possibilities and decide where they want to go deeper. Real mentor stories humanize those possibilities, while connections between careers, lifestyles, and skills help students understand how what they’re discovering relates back to their own future.

Bite-Sized Experiences That Build Toward a Personalized Plan

Every interaction is designed to move students forward through a simple progression:

DISCOVER → GO DEEPER → APPLY

Students can begin with an approachable introduction, video, mentor story, skill, workplace, or career. When something sparks their interest, they can go deeper, connecting what they’re learning to their strengths, interests, and aspirations. Ultimately, exploration moves toward action as students reflect, identify next steps, and begin developing plans for what they want to pursue next.

Over time, these seemingly small interactions become something much bigger: a personalized, student-driven picture of who they are, what’s possible for them, and where they may want to go next, captured through their My Plan.

An Easy First Step. Districts don’t have to wait for a new course, semester, or major curriculum rollout to begin.

What Is Find Your Grind?

Find Your Grind is a digital learning platform for grades 6-12 that connects self-discovery with career readiness.

Students begin their experience with a Lifestyle Assessment that helps them identify interests, values, strengths, and aspirations. From there, they engage in a research-backed curriculum focused on future-ready skills, career exploration, financial literacy, social-emotional development, and postsecondary planning.

Students:

Explore more than 300 careers
Build personalized digital portfolios
Earn digital badges and micro-credentials
Develop workplace-ready competencies
Connect learning to real-world pathways
Create actionable plans for life after graduation

See Find Your Grind in Action

Platform Preview

Discover Your Lifestyles Today!

Experience the first step all students take in their future-ready learning journey:

Testimonial Video – Watch Now!

Supporting the Career Pathways New York Students Are Actually Pursuing

Find Your Grind helps students explore a broad range of high-demand industries and career pathways, including:

Healthcare
Skilled Trades
Manufacturing
Construction
Culinary Arts
Cosmetology
Business and Entrepreneurship
Public Service
Engineering
Technology
Digital Media and Design

This broad exposure helps students make informed decisions about coursework, CTE programs, work-based learning opportunities, credentials, apprenticeships, college pathways, and career goals.

The platform complements both traditional academic pathways and Career & Technical Education (CTE) programs by helping students understand how their interests connect to real-world opportunities.

Proven Impact in New York Schools

Cypress Hills Collegiate Prep School

Find Your Grind supports Cypress Hills Collegiate Prep’s efforts to align student career exploration, portfolio development, and future planning with New York’s Career Development and Occupational Studies (CDOS) framework.

Gloversville Enlarged School District

Through its partnership with Find Your Grind, Gloversville middle school students access personalized career exploration and future-readiness experiences through dedicated career exploration courses.

Evidence-Based Results

ESSA Evidence Documentation: Read case study
Year 3 District Renewal Rate: 88%
CDOS Standards Crosswalk Download: Alignment Guide

Alignment to New York Career Readiness Standards and CDOS

Find Your Grind provides comprehensive support for New York’s Career Development and Occupational Studies (CDOS) Learning Standards.

CDOS Standard 1: Career Development

Students explore interests, strengths, values, and goals through self-discovery tools, career exploration experiences, and personalized pathway planning.

CDOS Standard 3a: Universal Foundation Skills

Students develop critical thinking, communication, collaboration, professionalism, problem-solving, and workplace readiness competencies.

CDOS Standard 3b: Career Majors

Students explore career pathways aligned to individual interests and future goals while earning badges and micro-credentials that demonstrate skill development.

CDOS Commencement Credential Support

Digital portfolios provide students with meaningful evidence of career exploration, reflection, goal setting, and future planning.

Accessibility and Inclusive Student Support

Find Your Grind is designed to provide equitable access for all learners.

The platform includes:

Progressing toward full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance
Screen reader compatibility
Keyboard navigation support
Reading-level accommodations
Accessible digital portfolio experiences
Flexible content delivery options
Support for IEP transition planning conversations
Alignment with student goal-setting processes
Support for students pursuing the CDOS Commencement Credential pathway

Funding Opportunities for New York Districts

Find Your Grind may qualify for multiple federal and state funding streams.

Perkins V Funding

Districts can leverage Perkins V funding to support:

Career exploration initiatives
Career readiness programming
CTE pathway awareness
Work-based learning preparation
Postsecondary planning activities
Future-ready skill development

Find Your Grind can be incorporated into a district’s Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) and Perkins funding application.

Title IV-A Funding

Districts may also utilize Title IV-A Student Support and Academic Enrichment funds for:

College and career readiness initiatives
Well-rounded educational opportunities
Personalized learning experiences
Digital learning programs
Student engagement and support services

Find Your Grind can be included within ESSA Consolidated Applications supporting these priorities.

District leaders should consult with their grants and business offices regarding funding eligibility.

Maximize BOCES Aid Reimbursement

Districts purchasing Find Your Grind through eligible BOCES service agreements may qualify for significant state aid reimbursement.

Depending on district aid ratios, eligible purchases may receive approximately 40% to 70% reimbursement through BOCES aid.

This can substantially reduce implementation costs while expanding access to:

Portrait of a Graduate initiatives
Career exploration programming
CDOS-aligned learning experiences
Future-ready skill development
Postsecondary readiness support

Districts should consult their local BOCES representative to determine reimbursement eligibility and aid rates.

How the NYSITCC Consortium Simplifies Procurement

Through the NYSITCC Contract Consortium, districts can access Find Your Grind through a pre-approved purchasing pathway that reduces administrative burden and accelerates implementation.

Benefits Include

✔ Competitive statewide pricing

✔ Reduced procurement timelines

✔ Elimination of lengthy RFP processes

✔ Ed Law 2-D compliant contracting

✔ Streamlined onboarding

✔ Dedicated implementation support

✔ Ongoing customer success partnership

Districts can work directly through their local BOCES or participating consortium partners to begin implementation.

Ready to Bring Portrait of a Graduate to Life?

New York districts are facing increasing pressure to translate Portrait of a Graduate competencies, career readiness standards, and workforce preparation goals into measurable student outcomes.

Find Your Grind provides a proven, scalable solution that helps districts move from vision to implementation.

Through the NYSITCC Contract Consortium, districts can deploy Find Your Grind quickly through a trusted statewide procurement pathway while supporting CDOS standards, career readiness goals, and future-ready learning priorities.