Bay Area California
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.
Learn More About the Bay AreaIn 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.
Learn More About the Bay AreaAchieving 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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 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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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.
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.
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It makes the students that are going through the program more workforce-ready. They will be able to build relationships and know how the workforce actually works, so when they take that job, they'll have that confidence.
When you become a teacher at Summit, you don't just become a teacher; you become a mentor for a cohort of students. This cohort of students has a mentor caring about them from the moment they walk into the building to the moment they leave the building.
We're building a house, if you think about it. Early childhood education is the foundation needed to make sure that house is stable. You can't have a house and then go back and say: we need a better foundation. You need to have that foundation before the house even goes up, which is what we're giving the kids - the foundation before they move on to higher education.
To solve this problem, the county government can't do it on its own. We need to partner with nonprofits and particularly with businesses to find creative ways to create new spaces.
We're committed to working with our community partners to address the many challenges that come up with providing high-quality child care. It really takes a partnership to unbundle these challenges and appropriately address them.
Both my mentors have been very helpful. They're always there for me if I have any questions about college or what I want to do with my future, because they've been through what I've been through.