What’s New

The Alignment Collaborative for Education conducted its second update  to School Board U-46 on March 19, 2018, highlighting progress on its 2018 Operational Plan along with updates from the three A-Teams:  Educational Pathways, Early Education and Trauma Informed Care.  Peter Sikorski, Get Fresh Produce, and Bill Wright, The Overture Group, also provided updates from the Governing Board on new initiatives to include industry roundtables, implementation of a work-based learning survey with area companies as part of a partnership with the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce and the National Campaign for Grade Level Reading initiative complimenting Alignment’s work in early education.

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The Alignment Collaborative for Education (ACE) is joined by 11 community partners that represent organizations within Elgin, Illinois and the greater School District U-46 community. These 12 partners represent organizations within the community that either have experience with leading collective impact initiatives and/or represent the strongest early-education subject-area expertise within the region.

NCGLR Partnership Organizations:

Joining the NCGLR allows the 12 community partners to align around a shared Community Action Plan that addresses early education preparedness as early as birth to age 8. Each partner brings diverse expertise to the initiative varying from a before school age concentration to experience in the completion of elementary school and middle school preparation.

Over 70 manufacturers, community leaders and School District U-46 staff participated in Alignment’s first roundtable on March 14, 2018, at the Hoosier Grove Barn in Streamwood.  The purpose of the roundtable was to discuss work-based learning as a priority for manufacturing workforce recruitment.

The event featured panel discussions with manufacturing associations currently practicing work-based learning followed by a panel of senior human resources managers representing some of the largest manufacturing companies within the U-46 community.  The HR professionals discussed the current workforce, ages 18 to 24, identifying their strengths and opportunities for skill gap closure using work-based learning as early as high school.  Thank you to the following panelists for contributing to the success of Alignment’s first industry roundtable:

• Kathleen Burley, Administrator, Golden Corridor Advanced Manufacturing Partnership
• Kathy Meisinger, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Elgin Community College
• Jim Nelson, Vice President of External Affairs, Illinois Manufacturers’ Association
• Joshua Seeberg, Manager, Skills Initiative, German American Chamber of Commerce
• Ed Youdell, President & CEO, Fabricators & Manufacturers Association
• Lisa Baran, Regional Human Resources Manager, Federal Signal Corporation
• Glenn Berg, Director, Human Resources & Safety, MKD Electric
• LaSalle Crosby, Corporate Recruiter, John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc.
• Michelle Chambers, Director of Human Resources, Hoffer Plastics
• Susan Silhavy, Human Resources Director, American NTN Bearing