We spend a full two years - 9th and 10th grades - focusing on manufacturing awareness, so students in these high schools are well aware of the long-term, rewarding careers available to them through manufacturing. They take plant tours, hear from guest speakers, tour the manufacturing program at their local community college, and more. Then, interested applicants are evaluated based on important work-related factors like attendance, behavior, and interest. They even interview with the employers themselves, so they start building that relationship early. Parents and administrators are also engaged through Open Houses, tours, in-service days, and more. So we thoughtfully and methodically introduce them to all their options and get them thinking about their futures!

Loved learning about your program!  The matriculation to college rate is really impressive.  Often "selling" manufacturing careers to parents is difficult. Have you been able to  measure parent engagement and response?  What percentage of project effort goes into this piece of the puzzle?

Hi Ann-Claire - you're exactly right about the challenges of getting parents engaged in manufacturing. You know about the 4 D's: people think manufactuing is dark, dirty, dangerous, and dying. We have to dispell those notions with the 4 C's: manufacturing is cool, challenging, creative, and commendable. We have one staff member devoted to career awareness activities across the 10 high schools, and I would say 25% of that program is parent engagement. (An important side note - once students are accepted to the program in 11th and 12th grades, communication with parents becomes even more important!) To date, our experience with the parents has been only anecdotal - we hear great stories and positive feedback from them. Occasionally, a parent will even apply for a manufacturing job as a result of seeing these plants firsthand! It's a good area for further research :-)

Hi Steven - Good question. We're building what we're calling, "ECEC in a Box." This will be a collection of materials that can easily be adapted to new communities. We've created employer guides, parent guides, marketing materials, templates for the Open Houses, assessments/quizzes/surveys, and more. Once we have some interested communities, we can package them up and make it easier for a new community to launch their own version of ECEC.

Hi Ed - Yes, it was too much for this video, but through our ITEST grant we are collecting both qualitative and quantitative data. This includes the effect of the program on both ECEC students (and those students not accepted to the program). These include changes to the individual's feelings of self-efficacy, visions for themselves in the future, and understanding of STEM careers. Stay tuned as we're still gathering and crunching this data!

I'm glad you like the program! I can tell you that providing transportation is very expensive, as we're schlepping students from their schools to manufacturers throughout Northeast Ohio. A region that is dense with manufacturers would allow for more efficient transportation from school to work. Two strong community colleges (LCCC and Tri-C) willing to adapt to this ambitious program has been extremely helpful. Finally, this program is also heavily dependent upon philanthropy, so a generous community (like Cleveland) has allowed us to provide the holistic services low-income students need like transportation, mentorship, professional development, and more.

The advantage of the Ohio location with the strong tradition of collaboration with community is striking.  How do you advise states with smaller manufacturing businesses to apply what you have developed into an extension of the apprentice concept?  Are there specific aspects that can be successful through virtual extensions?

Good questions!

A) We have lots of small manufacturing businesses involved. Probably the easiest adaptation of ECEC to a smaller community is to pair one company with one local high school, and encourage plant tours, guest speakers, etc all geared towards that one small manufacturer. If the term "apprenticeship" is scary for the employer, just call it a paid internship. Very few schools can set up a program like this on their own, so there's definitely a role for an intermediary to broker and oversee these partnerships.

B) Virtual is harder, but not impossible. There are online CNC simulators, ToolingU has tons of classes, and EdgeFactor has outstanding online manufacturing content. In this post-COVID world, everything is online...so it's definitely doable!

We'd be very interested! Our local community colleges are familiar with the program and have their own ATEs. But if a community college from outside Northeast Ohio wants to partner with us on a future ATE application, please reach out to me!

Yes, ECEC students start college classes in 11th grade (hence the "early college" part of the name!). Taking one class every semester, as well as labs and other credit opportunities, they graduate high school and ECEC with up to 15 college credits. This is paid for by the State of Ohio's College Credit Plus program. ECEC is so important because of students who utilize College Credit Plus in Ohio, fully 70 percent are Caucasian, while just 7.6 percent are African-American and 1.6 percent are Hispanic.

You bet...thanks for the positive feedback! Sorry it doesn't come through in the video strongly enough, but ECEC students start community college in 11th grade and will take 4 classes before graduation. So they leave high school with up to 15 college credits, all paid for through Ohio's College Credit Plus program. The "Early College" part of ECEC is really important as it gets students thinking about their educational future, familiar with a college campus, and halfway towards that Associates Degree!