FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                       October 18, 1999

Highlights of 1999 Accomplishments

SAN RAFAEL, California -- Over the past year, BaySCAN has reached numerous benchmarks of success. BaySCAN is now an established 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization with 5 staff members, an active Board of Directors, and an impressive Council of Advisors. Many of the accomplishments highlighted below are attributed to the hard work of the BaySCAN Board of Directors, staff, member organizations and committee members.

Learning Collaboratives
BaySCAN launched three industry-focused Learning Collaboratives in Multimedia, Financial Services, and Teaching and Learning Careers. This included hiring coordinators, convening schools and businesses, and establishing electronic newsletters and other communications systems. The BaySCAN Learning Collaboratives bring together over 100 schools and numerous employers throughout the region to share work and valuable lessons on creating career-focused learning opportunities and programs. BaySCAN is committed to expanding this effort, while adding new collaboratives in industry such as Information Technology and Health and Bioscience.

Employer Engagement
Over the past year, BaySCAN's efforts to facilitate employer participation in school-to-career have produced many accomplishments. The first was the development of strategic alliances with key employers and organizations. BaySCAN partners include the Bay Area Council, the Bay Area Industry Education Council, the Bay Area Multimedia Partnership, Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network and lead employers such as Bank of America, Siemens, Charles Schwab and Autodesk.

Through these partners, BaySCAN has been able to establish an Employer Engagement Director, located at the Bay Area Council, who will work with leading employers throughout the Bay Region. The goal is to increase awareness of school-to-career as a viable workforce development strategy and expand learning opportunities for students and teachers in the workplace.

BaySCAN also brought national resources to our region for effectively partnering with employers by participating in several high-profile projects. We manage the Work-Based Learning Enhancement Project, which embeds research on informal learning in the workplace into student and teacher internships. We are also a lead partner in the National School-to-Work Intermediary Project, which aims to establish a network of 25 employer-school intermediary organizations that will share effective practices and build models for connecting schools and employers that can be used across the country.

Marketing and Communications
BaySCAN's Marketing Committee has made significant progress in developing strategies and tools that create awareness and buy-in to school-to-career, and that benefit local partnerships and practitioners across the region. One significant milestone, achieved through contributions from Bay Area school-to-career partnerships, was establishing a regional Director of Communications. Through this position, BaySCAN has implemented regional marketing initiatives, while providing direct consulting to local partnerships on marketing and communications in their local communities.

To communicate school-to-career success stories, as well as model employer participation, we turned the spotlight on students, employers and local partnership through two important vehicles: BaySCAN's new video, Powerful Learning Through School-to-Career and the publication of the Employer Best Practice Report. Beginning this year, BaySCAN will launch a dynamic media campaign with partner CBS/Channel 5 that features ongoing student and employer success stories and public service announcements.

Identifying that school-to-career needs a stronger, easy-to-understand identity across the state, BaySCAN, along with partnerships in the Los Angeles area, have initiated a unifying event called California Intern Summer. Starting with the summer of 2000 and driven by a cohesive marketing campaign, California Intern Summer will engage thousands of employers and community members to partner with local schools to create and sustain learning opportunities for students and teachers in the workplace.

Building Policy Support
At the 1998 BaySCAN Annual Event, keynote speakers included Sharon Davis, wife of Governor Gray Davis, Stephanie Powers, Director, National School-To-Work-Office, Kerry Mazzoni, California Assembly, Sonia Hernandez, Deputy Superintendent for Curriculum and Instructional Leadership, California Department of Education, and Sunne McPeak, President and CEO of the Bay Area Council. These high-profile guests set the stage for increasing awareness of the need for school-to-career for improving education and workforce development.

BaySCAN convened meetings with our network, the School-to-Career Task Force of the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) and the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association (CCSESA). This marked the beginning of a coordinated effort to build a sustainability plan for school-to-career through a statewide Policy Network. We also held a powerful forum with Gary Hart, California Secretary of Child Development and Education. Mr. Hart heard from local legislators, economic development leaders, employers, schools superintendents, students and teachers about their experiences with and belief in school-to-career.

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