Rockford Public Schools - February 2023

Chamber survey drives priorities for college, career readiness

RPS 205 is listening

Dr. Ehren Jarrett, Superintendent - RPS 205

I sat down with Rockford Chamber President Caitlin Pusateri in November 2022 for the Community Priority Series. The conversation focused on results from the recent chamber survey on education. I want to stress that we’re listening to your feedback and already taking action. Here are some highlights from our conversation.

College AND careers: RPS 205 to launch Career Running Start

High school juniors have had the opportunity for years to enroll in dual credit courses at Rock Valley College (RVC) and earn college credit in high school. Running Start participants can graduate high school with an associate’s degree from RVC.

But college, as you pointed out, is not the only path to success. Based on survey feedback from the Rockford Chamber, we’re launching a Career Running Start program.

We’ll offer 40 seats in the program in the 2023-24 school year for juniors to study mechatronics, manufacturing, welding or aviation maintenance. Students will split their time between RVC for career training and academic coursework. With job-embedded learning, we’ll give students a running start directly to a career. We hope this illustrates our commitment to our students and our local workforce with a fast track to a career with a high paying job. It’s a win-win-win for our students, our workforce and our community.

Workforce readiness and soft skills

We hear both anecdotally and on the survey that students lack soft skills for workforce readiness. Chamber feedback helped prioritize a new plan to encourage and reinforce soft skills.

This semester, RPS 205 will deploy five workforce coaches to connect with students and employers in our community to focus on students’ soft skills. Here is how it works… Coaches will meet with students and employers at their actual job sites to provide feedback. Rather than exclusively focusing on evaluating students in newly created

pathways, we can now meet students where they are already working. Students can earn recognition for illustrating those soft skills in the form of digital badges and high school credit.

Thank you for welcoming these coaches into your workplaces and supporting our students in learning these essential skills.

Rockford Promise: tuition-free scholarships to NIU, RVC, RU

We received positive survey feedback about Rockford Promise, the locationbased scholarship program for RPS 205 students to receive free tuition to Rockford University, Rock Valley College and Northern Illinois University. The program, long-term, can be a gamechanger for our community that will increase property values and attract and retain talent into our community and workforce. We want to ensure that all students and families know that Rockford cares about its students and that college can be a reality, and even a promise.

Thank you, business leaders

I want a highly engaged business community that is paying close attention and holding the district accountable. High engagement with the public schools, higher education and business community means we can build partnerships that solve problems together.

Another survey is scheduled for the spring, and we hope it leads to more conversations and deep listening opportunities. This is a team sport. Our students – our children – don’t have to stay in our community when they graduate from high school. We want them to come home and stay home, in the same way we want businesses to come here and stay here.

Watch the full conversation at rockfordchamber.com

The views expressed are those of Jarrett and do not necessarily represent those of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce.