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Addressing Workforce Needs Through Education
addressing workforce needs through education
Sonoma Corps
Developed in collaboration with public and private stakeholders, Sonoma Corps was launched in September 2019 as a two-year “gap year” program to provide hands-on training and career exploration for high school seniors.
In their senior year of high school, 15 Piner High School students enrolled in a work-readiness skill-building course while exploring technical career opportunities in advanced manufacturing that pay a living wage.
After graduation, participants transitioned to paid internships with Keysight Technologies, E&J Gallo Winery, Costeaux French Bakery and Amy’s Kitchen to gain work experience while earning college credit from Santa Rosa Junior College. Upon successful completion of the internship, each participant receives a scholarship for post-secondary education, including college, trade school or apprenticeship programs.
Sonoma Corps is intentionally designed to support under-served and under-resourced students. Piner High School was chosen as our pilot site because of its high achievement gap – only 11% of its Hispanic/Latino students graduate eligible to apply to the California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) systems – and also due to the high number of low-income and under-served students. For many of our students, participation in this program represents an opportunity to break a cycle of generational poverty and create a financially secure future for themselves and their families.
Evaluation for further expansion and scaling of the Sonoma Corps program is in place to prepare for the 2021-2022 school year.
Sonoma Corps
Participant Demographics
addressing workforce needs through education
Career-Connected Learning in Action
CTE Foundation continued its successful expansion of the county-wide work-based learning (WBL) system supporting linkages between educators and employers.
When shelter-in-place orders went into effect, we connected individually with each high school WBL Coordinator to learn about challenges. We then shifted our focus to developing innovative ways to offer hands-on learning and industry engagement for the remote learning environment.
Two major interventions were developed to ensure students would continue to receive quality work-based learning experiences during distance learning:
- An online list of curated resources for students, educators and parents was created with topics ranging from career readiness to distance curriculum to tips for schooling at home.
- A virtual career exploration webpage focusing on Sonoma County-based careers was created. This resource contains dozens of videos that can be accessed from home to help students explore and understand the high-demand careers available locally.
