What Business and Employers Can Do
Here are some ideas for improving school success in our communities. Send us a note to recommend the resources you find useful.
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- Develop a school partnership. See Achieve Minneapolis' School Partners, the Clearinghouse on Educational Policy and Management’s Guidelines for School-Business Partnerships, How Business-School Partnerships Work in Bloomington, the Children, Youth and Family Consortium's Business as partners in education and Edutopia's School-to-Career topics.
- Start a mentoring or tutoring program. See the Mentoring Partnership's Training Institute and Achieve Minneapolis' Workplace Tutoring and e-Mentoring.
- See the School Readiness Toolkit for Employers from Minnesota Business for Early Learning or the Early Learning Best Practices in Business from Ready4K.
- Help children read well and independently by the end of the third grade with Simple Things Employers Can Do.
- Create a summer jobs program. See STEP UP’s Information for Businesses.
- See Schools First 10 Steps You Can Take Now to Support Your Public Schools.
- Find out what you can do to overcome the challenges that low-income students face in preparing for and paying for college with Breaking through the Barriers to College (PDF) from the USC Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis.
- Start a scholarship. See the Council on Foundations' Setting Up Scholarship Funds.
- Offer a free seminar or counseling to employees about paying for college, college admissions testing — especially those whose children are less likely to go to college. For an example see College Coach.
- Encourage employees to volunteer. Check with local schools about opportunities, share speaking or technology skills through BestPrep or search for volunteer opportunities with children and youth in the Twin Cities area.
