Alignment Collaborative for Education - ACE
Four (4) students from Larkin High School’s Education CTE program, Maya Nail, Zeke Rodriguez, Izzy Lopez, and Izeti Chavez, represented U-46 with their teacher Aurora Scarpaci at their first ever Educators Rising State competition at Illinois State University on March 4. Maya and Zeke earned 2nd place in the Children’s Literature competition with their original book, “The ABC’s of your Emotion.” Izeti Chavez was also awarded 3rd place for her Job Interview event. Congratulations to these Larkin students, our future teachers!
1,000 students from Larkin and Streamwood High Schools participated in career and technical trades professional panels during February and March. Professionals from the automotive, business, engineering, financial services, healthcare, insurance, large equipment maintenance, manufacturing, and technical trades industries provided advice to students on employment opportunities, skill sets required, and academic, business, and technical training needed to be successful.
On November 16, 2023 Flender Corporation hosted “Introduce a Girl to Engineering” night, exposing girls from Bartlett and Streamwood’s STEM programs to an array of career opportunities in engineering. Students were ‘hands on” with Flender’s engineering team, learning how to assemble gear boxes as well as experimenting with wind turbine blade modeling. The girls had the opportunity to incorporate their knowledge of physics, aerodynamics, blueprint reading, materials engineering, etc. Students also had an opportunity to tour the entire Flender operations seeing how gearboxes over 6 ft tall are assembled and overhauled for the wind turbine industry.
Nancy Coleman commended Flender for continuing to offer this program to introduce more high school girls to various engineering disciplines. “This program of Introduce a Girl to Engineering has been a showcase event for Flender for over a decade with girls meeting and working one on one with other female engineers to understand what educational and career pathways they chose to prepare for the profession.”
Thank you to the entire Flender team and especially its HR Team for planning and executing this event. We look forward to continuing the event and expanding it to other high schools.
Working with Northern Kane County Region 110, Alignment had the opportunity to partner students and teachers with local manufacturers celebrating October as Manufacturing Month. School districts U-46, 300, 301, and 303 all partnered together to provide this experience to students.
Bartlett High School’s Freshmen STEM Academy students, just beginning to consider different roles in engineering within the manufacturing industry, toured both Harting and Matrix as part of celebrating Manufacturing Month. Approximately 85 students benefited from this experience while another 45 seniors from Larkin High School and St. Charles North High School visited Hoffer Plastics and Lakeview Precision, learning about employment opportunities available following graduation in May.
Alignment and Northern Kane County Region 110 thank the participating companies for generously opening their doors to students. Employer enthusiasm for the day made it such a successful experience. Joe Paglia, Director of Team and Member Services, tied it to Matrix’s mission “Develop Great People. Build a Great Company. Deliver Great Results. We love sharing that with anyone and everyone who will listen!”
ACE is a member of the Alignment USA communities of collaboration and collective impact.
