The Chamber's Education committee is focused on connecting educators and employers together as we seek to address the workforce needs of our community and region.
Why an Education committee?
The Chamber recognizes the vital importance of promoting partnerships between educators and employers to address the workforce, economic and business development needs of our region. With thousands of open jobs in the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo metro, the need to develop new programs to train and retain workers has never been greater to ensure we achieve our economic growth and prosperity aspirations.
Purpose statement
The Education committee will work to cultivate relationships between educators and employers to expand experiential learning opportunities (internship, job shadow, apprenticeship, etc.) for PK-12 & higher education students as well as develop sound workforce retention programs for our region.
Goals
- Increase the number of Chamber members who provide experiential learning opportunities and develop intern criteria guidelines for developing/ enhancing internship programs.
- Educate employers on already existing statewide programs to help them capitalize on services, grants or funds already provided, through conversational roundtables with program-specific experts
- Provide additional career exploration/exposure tools to introduce PK-12 students to various career opportunities, and develop a video series of “in-demand” careers and help create “employers in the schools” initiative.
We are working to enhance:
- Communication between business leaders and educators by providing monthly meetings to develop/foster relationships while discussing various committee initiatives.
- Perceptions regarding the investment and ROI for internship programs by tracking hire-on rates of newly developed programs for interns to share with companies as they develop programs.
- The understanding and awareness among PK-12 students and parents regarding the vast array of career options and the pathways to pursuing those careers by providing exposure to various career opportunities.
- The ability of K-12 educators to ensure students on the “career” track get 75 hours of meaningful workplace learning and the shortfall of students who have early work-place experience by working to provide for additional experiential learning opportunities.
