We’re celebrating apprenticeship week this week honoring the role apprenticeships play in helping businesses train accomplished employees, and offering a way for learners to gain the skills they need to be successful in the workplace, while earning a wage while doing so. Below you’ll find a number of resources highlighting the importance of supporting apprenticeships at the national, state and local levels, to ensure learners are prepared for a lifetime of career success.
RESOURCE OF THE WEEK
Connecting the Classroom to Careers: Leveraging Intermediaries to Expand Work-based Learning, brief explores the role of intermediaries at the school, region and state levels, who coordinate between educators and employers to develop critical work-based learning opportunities for students. Learn more about South Carolina’s Apprenticeship Carolina program, which provides critical support to education institutions and employers around the state’s growing Registered Youth Apprenticeships and adult Registered Apprenticeships.
POLICY OF THE WEEK
Tech Ready Apprentices for Careers in Kentucky (TRACK) is a youth pre-apprenticeship program that stands out as an innovative example of effective collaboration between the Kentucky Labor Cabinet, the Kentucky Department of Education’s Office of Career and Technical Education, employers and labor to strengthen students’ career pathways and the talent pipeline. Learn more about TRACK through a webinar we held with Appalachia Regional Comprehensive Center.
PROGRAM OF THE WEEK
Upper Valley Career Center in Piqua, Ohio, is a two-year full-time academic and technical high school that includes a Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) program of study, with a pre-apprenticeship fully embedded into the program. The pre-apprenticeship program offers students the option of continuing on in a Registered Apprenticeship or non-registered apprenticeship, full-time employment, or additional postsecondary education and training, depending on the opportunities provided by the employer sponsor and student choice. Students have access to apprenticeships with 23 employers, providing them with a multitude of paths to continuing into a career of their choice, such as Cammi Clement, who graduated from UVCC, became an apprentice at Emerson Climate Technologies, and was offered full-time employment and tuition reimbursement upon completion of the program.
EVENT OF THE WEEK: Save the Date!
Save May 4th-5th, 2017 for Apprenticeship Forward, a national conference of leading practitioners from the apprenticeship field including industry associations and employers; unions and labor-management partnerships; community-based organizations; community colleges; high schools; and workforce boards–as well as federal and state policymakers from throughout the country. The event will focus on three critical challenges facing the expansion of apprenticeship:

• Increasing industry engagement across a range of sectors and firms;
• Addressing equity while diversifying the apprenticeship pipeline; and
• Implementing new public policies that can take apprenticeship to scale.

Apprenticeship Forward will feature engaging plenaries and breakout panels as well as interactive discussions between attendees about their efforts within specific industries and with specific groups of students and prospective workers.
Sponsoring Partners include:  National Skills Coalition, New America, AFL-CIO Working for America Institute, Advance CTE, National Association of Workforce Boards, National Fund for Workforce Solutions, National Governors Association, and Urban Institute
Katie Fitzgerald, Senior Associate, Communications