BY STACIE LETT CAIN
Meeting the needs of both employers and employees isn’t an easy task. But Iredell Ready has taken up the challenge, and by most accounts, is succeeding in matching up workforce skills with vacant positions within Iredell County.
“Across the board we are seeing improvement,” Jenn Bosser, president & CEO of the Iredell Economic Development Corporation, told a group of citizens, public officials and employers who gathered on Friday at Mitchell Community College in Statesville. “These are all individual successes, but we can also see the aggregate effect and benefit in things like increased high school graduation rate, achievement of degrees and enrollment in post-secondary education institutions.”
Established in 2022, Iredell Ready is a partnership of industry, academia, government and the non-profit community working collaboratively to identify, align and enhance strategic priorities across the workforce development pipeline from early childhood education to retirement.
Worrying about your career path doesn’t just happen in high school anymore. Now the target age is much younger.
“Our goal is to provide a clear path to do whatever it is to get to the career path they want to be on,” explained Mooresville Graded Schools Superintendent Jason Gardner. “Starting in sixth grade, sometimes even fifth grade, to begin teaching skills and raising career awareness and opportunity to get to the desired career path they choose. Waiting until ninth grade to begin this process is now waiting too long.”
One program directed at middle-schoolers is Career on Wheels, an event held every year that has grown to over 2,000 students and 70 business sponsors. The last event was held October 25, and though it was considered a huge success, plans are already in the works to make the next one even better.
“It’s a great opportunity for our sixth-graders to come out and see representatives of so many different industries,” Bosser said. “You never know what will create that spark that will lead a young person toward a career path. We are trying to find that spark for the children of Iredell County.”
According to Jeff James, superintendent of Iredell-Statesville Schools, the end game for the collaborative is to benefit students and local industry by preparing the next generation of workers.
“At the end of all of the education, we hope there is a career,” he explained. “What we all do gels together to create a productive citizen who ends up being someone who is a contributor to our community and fulfills a needed position within our community’s industry. It isn’t one-size-fits-all and we are striving to prepare our kids with classes that matter that teach durable skills.”
Those soft skills, like punctuality, work ethic, and the ability to communicate expectations, are not always found in a textbook. Iredell Ready places an emphasis on work-based learning for older students. Internships and apprenticeships that put the students in the types of jobs they are interested in provide experience and skills to prepare them to join the workforce.
“We always need to be looking at the data that we have,” James explained. “We need to support the needs we have. We listen to industry to see what they are needing and need to provide the education to get our students into those needed positions. Our education needs to provide a means to gain entry into the workforce. We don’t want anyone to go twelve years on a path that ends with no career at the end of it.”
Though there are big goals and even bigger dreams associated with Iredell Ready, according to Bosser, the important thing to remember is to keep the steps small.
“Sometimes it’s about the fundamentals — not a big end game,” she explained. “Everybody just needs to keep showing up and being involved. Be active. Do something. Be an advocate for your children and your community.”
When asked what made Iredell Ready the best way to achieve these goals for the children of our community, Gardner had one word: collaboration.
“Collaboration is the key and is the main strength that we have here in Iredell County,” he said. “We have the industry, we have the community and we have the educators all working to make this a reality.”