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MCCSC Adult Education Earns Behinid Every Employer Award.
The Monroe County Community School Corporation’s Adult Education Program is the 2022 recipient of the Behind Every Employer award from the Coalition of Adult Basic Education (COABE). https://youtu.be/8mDShsK7mj4
COABE and SkillsUSA are proud co-founders of Behind Every Employer, a national campaign that strategically connects companies with educational leaders across the country to provide solutions for the workforce talent challenges they face both today and in the future. COABE has partnered with Full Capacity Marketing (FCM) to provide an incentive grant and technical assistance to an adult education organization that can demonstrate effectiveness in engaging employers with multiple workforce and education partners.
Based on a workforce education initiative with Boston Scientific, COABE selected Monroe County Community School Corporation’s Adult Education Program as the winner to receive $2500 and technical assistance from FCM to enhance the existing employer engagement project. FCM will help Monroe County Schools Adult Education build on its existing efforts by creating a localized employer engagement campaign to highlight the success of the project and to promote partnership opportunities to other local employers.
Boston Scientific is a global life sciences company that employs 38,000 people around the world, including 1,500 employees in Spencer, Indiana. The Spencer site primarily manufactures medical devices for endoscopic and urologic procedures, while also collaborating with its research and development partners to produce cutting edge medical technology.
“It is important that our production employees can read product specifications, understand and carry out technical procedures, and communicate verbally with co-workers and supervisors to ensure that our medical products are of the highest quality,” commented Kimberly Holguin, director of human resources for Boston Scientific in Spencer.
Boston Scientific partnered with Monroe County Schools Adult Education in January 2021 to provide English language training to its employees who are native Spanish speakers. Of the 81 participants to date, 25 have showed measurable skill gains in their reading and/or listening skills on standardized assessment of English literacy skills. The partnership added Spanish language training for supervisors and managers who are native English speakers to close communication gaps between speakers of both languages. Additionally, Boston Scientific partnered with another adult education program at the Owen County Public Library in Spencer to support employees pursuing their high school equivalency. Boston Scientific shared the costs of these trainings with Monroe County Schools and the Owen County Public Library.
In support of application, Holguin wrote, “Our community partnerships have proven to be a win-win for our company and the community. Our workforce is more diverse than ever, employee retention has improved, and we are able to fulfill our mission to impact the lives of patients around the world with the lifesaving and sustaining medical devices we manufacture.”
Robert Moore, Director of Adult Education for the Monroe County Community School Corporation, said, “We are extremely honored to receive this prestigious award with Boston Scientific. The incentive grant and technical assistance we will receive as a result of the award will help us serve the employers in our community even more effectively.”
The award was presented at COABE’s annual conference in Seattle, WA, April 10-13, 2022.
Pictured left to right: Jennifer Wigginton (Executive Director of the Indiana Association for Adult & Continuing Education), Sheila Butler, MCCSC Adult Education Teacher), Robert Moore (MCCSC Director of Adult Education), Marilyn Pitzulo (Associate Chief Workforce Strategy & Design, Indiana Department of Workforce Development), Celina Shands, Co-Founder of Full Capacity Marketing, Inc.).
