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02.08.24
North Carolina businesses and K-12 schools need to work together more closely to training young people for careers soon after high school, North Carolina education and business leaders said Thursday.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce on Thursday published a toolkit to help businesses provide more hands-on learning opportunities for K-12 students.
Businesses want to be more involved in workforce education at the K-12 level, but they often don’t know how, North Carolina Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Salamido said. The health care industry is most interested in working with schools, chiefly for direct-care workers, but broad swaths of industries are, as well. That includes manufacturing and technology and even human resources and finance, he said.
The groups released the toolkit Thursday, in the hopes of boosting the relationship between businesses and schools.
“My hope is that we will see business leaders, literally going online, looking at this toolkit and saying, ‘Oh … these are the schools that I can tap into in my community. And so we're going to call the principal, we're going to call the counselors, we're going to create a plan that shows how we can go in and be a part of these workforce development plans,’” North Carolina Superintendent Catherine Truitt said.
Business leaders’ input helped form the toolkit and includes information on case studies, return on investment, contacts, what things businesses need to do before getting involved, and different programs businesses can get involved with.
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