2024 CTE Works! Summit

Black youth in Minneapolis/St. Paul currently face the highest disparities in racial wealth gaps, employment, and educational attainment due to systemic challenges that have yet to be dismantled. What do solutions to close these racial equity gaps look like when young adults are not only the center of this work, but co-designers using their lived experience to inform the systems and structures that should be altered to ensure they are not only able to reach their academic and career goals, but thrive. Join this discussion and learn about efforts to create positive, impactful, measurable change.

After this session, you will:

1. Understand how to bring diverse stakeholders across a complex ecosystem together with common vision.
2. Understand ways and methods to having young adults at the center of co-designing solutions as active participants in the process.
3. Understand key insights to the research and the process of prioritizing solutions with young adults."

Creating authentic youth work experiences require deep partnership between schools, employers and intermediaries. In 2023, Greater Twin Cities United Way partnered with the Minnesota Chamber Foundation to support 11 local chambers of commerce working closely in their communities to offer supportive and career aligned work experiences for young people to grow their local talent workforce. This session will feature a panel of leaders from Owatonna, Redwood Area Chamber and the Winona Area Chamber of Commerce who will share more about the growth of their programs, how they create authentic employer partnerships and guidance on working with schools.

Greater Twin Cities United Way set out in 2015 to re-shape how our schools prepare students for success. We founded Career Academies to provide more youth a path toward a meaningful career, while ensuring key industries have the skilled workers they need.

With support from the Pathways to Prosperity Network and Jobs for the Future (JFF) out of the Harvard School of Education, we have aligned school districts, colleges and employers behind a powerful vision: to unite public education and employment systems so that all students in Minnesota have pathways to wealth-building and purpose driven careers.

Partnering with school districts, post-secondary partners, employers and workforce intermediaries across Minnesota, Career Academies provides specialized funding, technical assistance and coaching, and a platform for peer-to-peer support focused on building sustainable career pathways alongside local businesses.

Together, we work to ensure students have equitable access to college credits, rigorous and relevant curriculums, and meaningful and supportive work experiences.

Minnesota Chamber Foundation Business Education Network
Career Academies is proud to partner with the Minnesota Chamber Foundation and their Business Education Network (BEN) which is a private-sector solution to employers’ urgent need to find skilled, qualified and ready workers for jobs across our state. The BEN is employer-led, connecting students with high-demand careers in their community and region. Local chambers of commerce are the linchpin to the success of the BEN. They drive these programs and connect area employers with K-12 and higher education leaders.

Future Ready Workforce Fund
A critical part of a successful career pathways strategy is high-quality work experiences for youth that are aligned and stackable within a specific pathway, allowing for youth to advance in one career field or transition to another, increasing pay or experience. Since our work started in 2015, the education field has made significant progress toward offering career pathways aligned work experiences for youth. And yet, currently, our system of internships and youth work experiences are disconnected from career pathways and miss an opportunity for academic and work experiences to be aligned around a student’s individual interests, strengths and career aspirations.

Through the Future Ready Workforce Fund, United Way will catalyze school-business partnerships to fill the gaps that exist in our current educational system toward all students in Minnesota accessing wealth-building, purpose driven careers.

Moderator: GTUCW / MN Chamber
1. Owatonna
The SteeleCo Works program is a collaborative between the Owatonna Chamber, Workforce Development Inc and the United Way of Steele County. The partners are planning to focus on students in grades 10-12 who are unsure what they want to do after high school, all students are part of career pathways at Owatonna and they are continuing to expand this program. In this pilot program, they will extend work experiences/internships into the summer (8 weeks) and provide support to address barriers (transportation). Work experiences will be identified based on the interest of the students and take place in the summer. Typically, this will be in either manufacturing or mechanic work in diesel mechanic industries. Other work experiences will be tailored to individual student interest in veterinarian work, or health care.

2. The Winona Area Chamber of Commerce has partnered with Minnesota State College Southeast to create Synergy Academy, a career academy focusing in in demand career pathways for students in grades 10-12. This program features 9 different pathways, including Computer Aided Drafting Technologies, CNC Machine Tool, Electronics Technology, Mechatronics, Welding Technology, Construction Technology, Automotive Technology, Health & Human Services bundle, and General Education bundle. Among those include several that offer a credentialed certificate for completion of the required programming. This program also includes a Power Skills Certification to help students prepare for career placement but also help them as they navigate the workforce into the future. Additionally, Synergy Academy is bringing CEO's and leadership into 8th grade classrooms to help them see different opportunities available as they plan for their high school classes and prepare for their futures. This program began as a one that served only two industries in one school with 32 students to serving over 200 students from 30+ schools and many industries. Through this expansion, we are proud of the increase in internship offerings and program support by our private sector. As we prepare for our growing workforce needs, this Academy approach is educating students in the most high-demand careers in our region.

After this session, you will be able to:

1. Understand Key Strategies for Building Effective Partnerships: Participants will learn about the essential strategies and best practices for establishing and maintaining successful partnerships between schools, employers, and community organizations/intermediaries to enhance youth work experiences.
2. Identify and Address Common Challenges in Partnership Development: Attendees will be able to recognize common barriers to creating and sustaining partnerships, such as misaligned goals or resource constraints, and develop actionable solutions to overcome these challenges.
3. Design and Implement High-Quality, Collaborative Youth Work Programs: Participants will gain the skills to collaboratively design, implement, and evaluate youth work programs that meet the needs of both young people and employers, ensuring meaningful and impactful experiences for all stakeholders involved.

K-12 Career Connected learning starts with great community partnerships! Join us to learn how Junior Achievement North and Minneapolis Public Schools are designing a long-term, sustainable partnership to prepare ALL MPS students for life beyond high school graduation through career-focused, hands-on opportunities and high-quality experiences related to work readiness, financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is dedicated to providing a high-quality education for every student. As part of this commitment, the MPS Career and Technical Education (CTE) department has outlined an ambitious vision for the 2024-25 school year aimed at expanding career opportunities and integrating real-world learning experiences into its curriculum.

During the 2024-25 School Year MPS aims to:
•Expose students to diverse career opportunities.
•Provide hands-on, real-world career learning experiences.
•Incorporate these experiences into the students' overall learning journey.
•Offer high-quality instruction in work readiness, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship.
•Build a multi-year, district-wide partnership to ensure equitable access to Junior Achievement (JA) programs.
•Develop students' career readiness skills year over year.

MPS has established a robust partnership with Junior Achievement North (JA North), a leading organization dedicated to preparing young people with the skills and mindset necessary for thriving communities. JA North's programs are designed to empower students from kindergarten through 12th grade through experiential learning.

JA North provides curriculum delivered by grade-level teachers in classrooms, complemented by the support of volunteers—both virtual and in-person. These volunteers, who are local professionals, offer students direct insights into various career paths and help them develop essential skills. JA North’s accessible learning models significantly enhance the students' educational experience by making learning practical and engaging.

Through this partnership, MPS ensures that all students have equitable access to comprehensive JA programs. By embedding these programs into the education system, MPS is committed to building important career readiness skills in students, preparing them for a successful future.

Join us in exploring how this visionary partnership is transforming career and technical education at MPS and learn how you can be part of similar initiatives to equip our students with the skills they need for a thriving future.

Session participants will:

• Leave with knowledge that will inspire them to leverage community partnerships in their school district’s career readiness initiatives.
• Learn about free and low-cost experiential learning options available through Junior Achievement North that align with MDE’s career readiness domains and competencies.
• Understand funding opportunities and limitations associated with Perkins V, CTE Levy and Minnesota Integration funding.

Junior Achievement North programs are offered and available to educators throughout Minnesota.

Whether your are getting started with work-based learning or looking to expand your impact, this session will help you create transformational experiences for students. Discover how to develop effective work-based learning program structures that connect seamlessly with existing educational infrastructure. Let’s revolutionize how educational institutions, local businesses, and communities support student learning for long-term success. This workshop offers a simplified approach to leveraging key educational initiatives, covering the why and how with practical application. Attendees will leave with a solid understanding of how to effectively utilize experiences and infrastructure for meaningful change. Together, we can make a difference!  
After this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the basic elements (tied to research) to build a quality work-based learning experience.
• Apply the learning to improve existing work-based learning experiences.
• Decipher a simple plan to progress work-based learning at your institution.

Highly skilled early childhood educators are important to the children, families, and profession. Some educators are being left out of higher education institutions due to English not being their primary language. Offering college courses in other languages is possible and can help grow the field!

The barriers to transition from an all-English track for awards in Early Childhood Education to adding a second language can be challenging within a State System of Colleges and Universities. The presenters will share what the barriers were and how they overcame them to establish the first Spanish Language award at their college.

You'll learn how to:

• Outline the process to determine if a different language track for program courses is viable.
• Identify barriers to adding different language tracks at an institute of higher education.
• Chart a path to higher award levels in different languages or adding multiple languages to a program. 

K-12 educators were funded to engage in 30+ hours of industry-based work experiences with the goal to enhance an element of their curricula and apply trades skills in the classroom. Learning from their time in the field educators were challenged to build connections with local industries and new experiences for all students.

Educators:
Doug Androli
Issac Ydstie
Cindy Jacobs

After this session attendees will be able to:  

• Understand the value of hands-on working experience for classroom educators.
• Identify ideas for implementing trades skills in their own classrooms.
• Motivate the development of local partnerships with local industry and careers 

Experiential learning in rural Minnesota schools can be challenging. Despite the challenges, there are opportunities for schools and partnerships to be nimble and innovative, develop personal relationships with students, and collaborate with other schools in their region. This session will focus on a multi-stakeholder effort to integrate schools, employers, local government, and community resources to provide meaningful experiential learning for high school students in Fillmore County and Houston County in Southeast Minnesota.

After this session, you will be able to:

• Session participants will be able to articulate potential action steps to secure meaningful multi-sector partnerships for the benefit of rural schools and communities.
• Session participants will be able to reflect on the potential integration of their existing partnerships to achieve a robust experiential learning program.
• Session participants will be able to contribute to dialogue on their local and regional efforts with experiential learning.