Rubadue
A state grant will allow Aspire Johnson County to continue its efforts to connect students with Indiana employers.
The Indiana Commission for Higher Education awarded $5 million to approved intermediaries to increase their capacity to strengthen connections between students and schools with employers and post-secondary institutions, officials announced Monday. One of the recipients was Aspire, the county’s chamber of commerce, which received $224,000.
The one-time Intermediary Capacity Building grant was created in 2023 by the Indiana General Assembly to advance “priority areas” within last year’s House Enrolled Act 1002, which expanded workforce development efforts within schools by making high school curricula more career-centered. Grant recipients will ensure Hoosier students are aware of and prepared for high-quality careers and educational pathways beyond high school, Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education Chris Lowery said in a news release.
Recipients are required to use the funds to expand access to one or more of the following programs created by HEA 1002: Career Scholarship Accounts, Career Discovery Meetings, Career Coaching and Navigation Grant Recipients. The grant period is from Dec. 1, 2023, to June 30, 2025, according to a news release.
Aspire applied for the grant because it fits in with their efforts to strengthen connections between students, schools and employers through their School to Work program. The chamber also has a School to Work specialist whose job is to connect businesses to classrooms and students to career exposure opportunities, said Amanda Rubadue, vice president of economic development for Aspire.
“This really fit in well with the relationships that we’ve developed with the schools with the businesses and getting students connected into those career exposure opportunities,” Rubadue said.
The School to Work program, which launched in 2022, connects students with employers by allowing them to engage with each other and giving students opportunities to tour companies where they could end up interning or working for. Chamber officials also work with teachers and counselors who could expose students to more local job and career opportunities, with school staff members being given the opportunity to go on teacher field trips to employers.
“It allows us to further partner with our schools to help support the state’s goals of career exposure for our students,” she said.
Aspire will act as a connector for the Career Scholarship Accounts and Career Coaching and Navigation, but the area where they will be bringing “the most value” for schools is for the Career Discovery Meetings, Rubadue said.
All junior and senior students are required to have a 30-minute meeting with either a post-secondary educational institution, an intermediary, an employer or a labor organization to learn about potential careers. These meetings can only have up to five students at a time and must be during school hours, she said.
These efforts are important because there is a need to ensure that the students who grow up in Johnson County stay in the county once they graduate and get a career. Students need to know there are cool local opportunities for them career-wise after they graduate high school and college, Rubadue said.
“Through our work, in conversations that we’ve had with teachers and counselors, students have a pretty narrow view of what is available, different careers that are available,” she said. “So we want to just be able to expand their expand their understanding of the cool jobs that we have here in Johnson County.”
Those who want to learn more about Aspire’s School to Work program can contact School to Work Specialist Jennifer Hollingshead at [email protected].
