Achieving Tomorrow -

Bay Area California

Achieving Tomorrow’s “Voices” highlights the impact educators, administrators, community leaders, parents, and businesses can have when they join forces to help students succeed.

Search the stories below by state or topic and learn more about these inspiring communities.

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Inspiring and Mentoring the Future Workforce

Summit Prep’s unique Expeditions courses allow Matt Tognotti to explore his passions with an internship at Speck Products. Through his Expedition, Matt is developing professional and communication skills that will enhance his profile as he considers the next step in his education and career path. His supervisor, Lucia Rodilla, sees the value in mentoring students and becoming workforce-ready.

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How Summit Prepares Students for the Jobs of Tomorrow

Summit Preparatory High School, a public non-profit charter high school in Redwood City, offers a unique solution to the dilemma of college readiness and the workforce skills gap, the Summit Expeditions program. These special electives allow students to explore their interests and develop work ready skills through coursework tied to curriculum, emphasizing project-based learning and real-world experience.

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Strengthening Communities by Investing in Early Childhood Education

Build Up SMC was established to alleviate the childcare shortage in San Mateo County. This coalition relies on partnerships with city officials, developers, employers, school districts, and others to bring creative solutions for childcare and early learning facilities to the table in broader city planning conversations.

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The Future of San Mateo: Early Childhood Education

San Mateo County had a childcare shortage crisis limiting economic opportunities for families and access to education for the county's children. Using data to position early childhood education and care as an infrastructure challenge, Build Up SMC is growing and improving the supply of childcare and early learning programs through advocacy, strategic partnerships, and making childcare and early learning conversations a priority.

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Fostering Community and Innovation in Fayetteville

The Fab Lab provides a space where people in the community can come together to build and design. It’s more than the tools and the building itself. It’s a community of makers and learners coming together to change the world.

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Fayetteville is Looking Toward the Future of Trade Skills

The Fab Lab is an environment where students learn in a different way. They are encouraged and empowered to find a problem, design something that could solve it, and then watch that solution come to life.

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Fayetteville’s Bright Future

Given their entrepreneurial and accepting culture, the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce aimed to create a program that would increase exposure of technology and STEM for today’s students to see what their career pathways in technology could be.

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Inspiring Innovation at the Northwest Arkansas Fab Lab

With a vision to be a community that encourages entrepreneurship, advances science and technology careers, contributes to the resurgence of American innovation and creates a new generation of entrepreneurs, inventors and artisans, the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, along with AT&T and community stakeholders, created the Fab Lab.

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Inspiring Youth to Preserve the Spirit of New Orleans

Hilton New Orleans Riverside, Warren Easton Charter High School, and Tulane's Cowen Institute are investing in the hospitality industry in New Orleans, ensuring that local youth have a pathway to a thriving career, all while preserving the city's rich history and spirit.

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Building a Future for New Orleans Hospitality

Millions of people travel to New Orleans every year to experience its world-renowned culture. However, after Hurricane Katrina, the city faced an uphill battle in its economic recovery, with many locals incentivized to leave the city for more stable conditions. New Orleans has had to develop a unique, targeted approach to grow their own talent at every stage of the pipeline in order to reinvigorate its workforce.

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Bay Area

In California’s Bay Area, a unique coalition of businesses, early education advocates, policymakers, and real estate developers partner to improve student outcomes throughout the education pipeline. As Summit Preparatory High School, a public non-profit charter high school in Redwood City, offers a unique solution to the dilemma of college readiness to prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow, Build Up for San Mateo's Children, a coalition established to alleviate the childcare shortage in San Mateo County, relies on partnerships with city officials, developers, employers, school districts, and others to bring creative solutions for childcare and early learning facilities to the table in broader city planning conversations.

Boston

While Boston is ranked as one of the world’s most economically powerful cities, it is also one of the nation’s top cities for income inequality. Millions of young adults in Boston have the drive and aptitude to fill a valuable roll at a corporation, but are unable to get a foot in the door. Corporate partnerships with organizations like Year Up are equipping students with the skills they need, and opening doors to opportunity for Boston's youth.

Chicago

When faced with labor shortages and an aging workforce in Wheeling, Illinois, High School District 214 partnered with 950 industry partners to start the Career Pathways Program, which provides more than 12,000 students from six different high schools exposure to real employment opportunities. Headquartered in Chicago, McDonald’s invests in its’ employees across the country through the Archways to Opportunity program, which empowers employees to earn a high school diploma, improve their English, or work toward a college degree.

Fayetteville

In Fayetteville, Arkansas, business and community leaders partner to create an environment that will ignite interest in the skilled trades and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurial technology leaders. As a hotbed of technology startups, Fayetteville is a “funky” town where new ideas can flourish. Given their entrepreneurial and accepting culture, the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce aimed to create a program that would increase exposure of technology and STEM for today’s students to see what their career pathways in technology could be. The Fayetteville community is welcoming new business into the city, which means new jobs and the need for new talent. The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce is helping deliver the skills these businesses are looking for while allowing students to develop a vision for their own future career.

Huntsville

Huntsville, Alabama is also know as "The Rocket City"-- not only because it is home to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, but because it is always looking towards the future. Huntsville provides tremendous opportunities for students to enter high-skilled, high-tech career fields, and the demand for skilled workers is higher than ever. The business community has rallied together to inspire the next generation of dreamers and doers by investing in education programs that equip teachers, school leaders, and parents to promote problem-based learning through hands-on experiences at school and at home.

Las Vegas

Working hand-in-hand with the business community of Las Vegas, the Clark County School District holds their students to high expectations and aims to close the achievement gap. Through adopting schools, sponsoring academic teams, and imparting the importance of soft skills, the Las Vegas community is helping students recognize their potential and achieve their dreams.

Minnesota

Recognizing the valuable lessons that can be shared with students, Minnesota's business community is committed to giving back to schools and students. By applying academics to real-life situations like owning a business or working as an athletics trainer for the Minnesota Vikings, students understand the relevance of what they are learning and how it will affect their future, sparking a new excitement.

New Orleans

Hospitality is the third largest sector in New Orleans and its success is dependent on a healthy and robust local workforce pipeline. To attract, hire, and retain talent from the community, Hilton partners with a local high school and Tulane University’s Earn and Learn program to ensure that New Orleans’ students are exposed to careers in their communities while preserving the city’s rich history and spirit. An example is Hilton's Passport to Success program, which equips New Orleans students with the skills necessary to be successful in a hospitality career by engaging young adults aged 18-24 in a multi-faceted experience that includes hard and soft skills training in the classroom, access to career fairs, and work-based learning opportunities in a variety of hospitality disciplines.

Nogales

Nogales is a major port of entry between the United States and Mexico and a bilingual, binational city. Instead of seeing this as an obstacle, educators in Nogales see this as an asset-- they are developing students who can work in two languages, and who have skills like flexibility, adaptability, and resilience. These soft skills will help students be successful in whatever path they follow in life-- and the business community in Nogales provides career exploration opportunities to help students find and succeed in the jobs of tomorrow.

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Northeast Texas

In 2010, Texas Instruments approached the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas with a problem: by 2020, TI would not have enough engineers to hire in Texas. With major support from companies like TI and Ericsson, the Girl Scouts built the STEM Center of Excellence, a 92-acre living laboratory centered around STEM activities. With 88% of girls who went to the STEM Center of Excellence reporting increased interest in STEM careers, the the STEM Center of Excellence is already making strides in fostering a long overdue STEM leadership pipeline in Texas.

Northern Kentucky

In Northern Kentucky, elementary schools, postsecondary institutions, community partners, and business and industry leaders recognize the importance of investing in their children's success. By setting high academic standards and clear goals and extensively using data to ensure children are making progress, Northern Kentucky has created a strong collective impact to provide high-quality education to all students and prepare them for the future workforce.