Mercedes-Benz, a top employer in the region, is part of a network involving more than 230 industry, government, and education representatives that are improving school-to-local employment paths for students
When Arielle Nevins was a senior at Central High School in Tuscaloosa, she wasn’t sure where she was headed. Growing up in western Alabama, which has some of the most impoverished rural communities in the country, she knew she had to find some way to support herself. Her ACT score and the daunting prospect of tuition debt discouraged her from college.
A career coach at school suggested a range of options, including free classes at a nearby training center called Skilled Trades of West Alabama. Nevins chose two short courses in carpentry, where she met a recruiter for her current job at Harrison Construction. The guidance of her coach, Paige Yaeger, was key.
“She put time and effort into helping us get jobs,” says Nevins, who is 19 years old. “If it weren’t for her, how many people would be lost?”
Nevins benefited from a robust collaboration called West AlabamaWorks! that aims to help young people find paths to good wages and meet employers’ needs for staff. With a population of 353,000, the nine-county area has lost textile mills and surface coal mines over the last 30 years, killing jobs and spurring young people to leave. Now the local economy relies heavily on making cars and car parts. Mercedes-Benz is a top employer.
For years, the region’s public schools graduated too few students who could read and do math well enough to work in factories that were becoming increasingly high-tech. Mike Daria, superintendent of Tuscaloosa City Schools, the biggest district in the area, said too many students were leaving high school without any plans for the day after graduation.
“We were finger pointing,” Daria says. “Employers would say K–12 had to do a better job. K–12 was saying, ‘Stay in your lane.’ None of us knew best.”
In 2014, the Regional Workforce Council asked the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama to team up to strengthen the labor force. What evolved was West AlabamaWorks!, a nonprofit network of industry, government, and education leaders that brings together more than 230 representatives to improve the path from school to employment. It includes hundreds of companies, local colleges, and 12 school districts. As detailed below, their partnership led to posting career coaches at high schools, creating giant career expos for teenagers, expanding career-oriented courses and apprenticeships, and launching online portals for job seekers, among other steps.
One top priority is having every student graduate high school with at least one of the “three Es” –employed, enlisted, or enrolled in college. Sustained efforts paid off: last summer, 89 percent of students in Tuscaloosa City Schools’ graduating class of 2023, for example, had a plan for after high school, up 15 percentage points from the year before.
While trying to prepare students for college, the district is also offering more support than it did in the past for students who choose to go straight to work, Daria says. For the graduating classes of 2022 and 2023, about 42 percent of new graduates headed to four-year colleges and 21 percent enrolled in two-year colleges.
Initiatives of West AlabamaWorks! – which has a $1.8 million annual budget – build on each other as students move through the K–12 system. Its early steps forward have inspired similar efforts in Montana, Texas, and Virginia.
All ninth graders in the region – totaling more than 4,000 – are required to attend this annual career expo full of hands-on activities. More than 100 companies bring displays so that students can operate a crane, manipulate remote-controlled robots, draw blood from a mannequin, and drill through fake bones in a mock operating room.
“It’s the Disneyland of workforce development,” says Donny Jones, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama. “It’s touch, feel, taste.”
Launched in 2015, the October event at Shelton State Community College is timed to motivate students to pick career-and-technical courses in tenth grade. Some liken the impressive number of options to the extensive menu at a Cheesecake Factory: classes include broadcasting, firefighting, nursing, veterinary science, and animation. This push has spurred increased enrollment in courses like welding and a “modern manufacturing program” that equips students for entry-level jobs at car makers, suppliers, and other plants right after high school.
At this annual job fair for high school seniors, participating companies must come prepared to interview candidates and make contingent job offers on the spot. Last spring, 229 seniors received more than 610 offers at the event, provided they passed drug tests and other requirements.
“These are kids who don’t have opportunities, it seems, living in small rural communities without jobs or transportation,” says Jones. “These companies are willing to give them a chance.”
West AlabamaWorks! uses federal training dollars to give companies incentives to hire students in poverty. In some cases, that aid can cover a year’s salary for a new hire. Some employers pay for continuing education and credentials.
Other elements of the partnership include career exploration using virtual reality headsets, apprenticeships, and job-search kiosks in high schools and other public sites.
This novel approach brings principals and teachers into factories four times a year to see what industry needs in their future employees. Daria, the superintendent, says these visits have led schools to focus more on instilling soft skills in students, such as punctuality, perseverance, and collaboration.
“School leaders are more aware and intentional about what they’re preparing students for long term,” he says. “Before we were just preparing students for the next grade.”
Challenges include low pay for career-and-technical education teachers who could earn more in industry, insufficient affordable housing near job sites, a lack of public transit in rural areas, and a dearth of childcare. It is hard to make sure everyone hears about the programs and to keep a broad range of employers committed.
It can also be difficult to motivate young people to focus on building a career. Alabama’s labor participation rate of 57 percent is one of the lowest in the country. A survey by the Alabama Workforce Council found that fear of losing Medicaid or food stamps deterred some people from working.
The collaboration has added programs to help people involved in the justice system get a second chance. It is building a network of West Alabama companies willing to hire people with a criminal history, and has a website that connects them with these job seekers. Building Hope launched in March of 2023 and has more than 1,735 registered job seekers and 42 participating companies.
Rolf Wrona, vice president of human relations at Mercedes-Benz United States International, says his company works hard to supplement its workforce by attracting young people to manufacturing early and showing them the potential for high-paying jobs through apprenticeship programs. The automotive industry “is a safe and clean environment with incredible opportunities,” he says.
Mercedes-Benz has donated cars to high schools so students aged 16 to 18 can explore them in the “modern manufacturing program” and work part-time at the plant. The company also works with community colleges to create two-year technical programs in “mechatronics” and “Mercedes tech” that bring paid apprenticeships. About 100 students a year participate in those options combined, which lead to full-time employment when they complete their programs.
As chair of West Alabama Works!, Wrona says the partnership succeeds because meetings are focused on measuring results and taking action. “We meet regularly and it’s not a check-the-box activity,” he says. “We have open, challenging discussions.”
This article is part of a series featuring winners of Profiles in Collective Leadership, an initiative by Carnegie Corporation of New York in partnership with the nonprofit Transcend, that recognizes outstanding local partnerships that educate youth, bolster the workforce, and demonstrate the power of working together. The 10 nonpartisan collaborations in urban, suburban, and rural areas across the country draw on the strengths of local government, education, nonprofit, business, and health care professionals to catalyze socioeconomic mobility and civic engagement in their communities. The 10 recognized partnerships in eight states have been awarded $200,000 grants and will act as exemplars, sharing what they have learned with each other and more broadly.
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