Bentonvilles Ignite Program Immerses Students in Workplace

Career-readiness programs have sprung up all over the region’s school districts in the past three years.

Although the new schools and programs use a variety of approaches, they all advertise a focus on soft skills and aim to address one problem cited by employers throughout Northwest Arkansas: Many recent high school and college graduates are ill-prepared to join the workforce.

Since Mike Poore signed on as Bentonville Public Schools superintendent four years ago, the issue has been at the forefront of strategy discussion.

“We had been looking for a way to integrate career pathways and relevant, real working opportunities, but for a long time struggled on the delivery,” he said.

With an ever-growing district and a high school bursting at the seams, “We thought, ‘Where are we going to put this?’” Poore said.

Last year, a possible solution emerged through visits to Blue Valley Schools’ CAPS (Center for Advanced Professional Studies) and Northland CAPS, in Kansas City, Missouri. The two high school programs offer real-world experience to students by immersing them into professional environments.

Representatives from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Tata Consultancy Services, Northwest Arkansas Community College, the University of Arkansas, NWA Tech Council and Ozark STEM Foundation also made the trip, Poore said. “Everyone who was there sees this as a game-changer.”

Bentonville High School’s Ignite @ Professional Studies Center program, which launched in August, is based on that model.

Right now, Ignite students — there are 17 — meet daily at the offices of one of its corporate partners, Tata, located in the Bentonville Plaza.

Tata Consultancy Services, a multibillion-dollar technology solutions company, is part of the India-based global enterprise, Tata Group.

Ram Ramasamy, head of strategic accounts for the company’s retail and consumer packaged goods industry solutions unit in Bentonville, said Tata’s partnership with Ignite is related to its values-driven business philosophy, committed to improving the quality of life of the community, specifically in the areas of education, health care access and sustainability.

“Giving back is a core value of the group,” Ramasamy said.

In addition to granting space for the program, some of Tata’s employees will be teaching the students programming skills, and also how to manage their careers.

The students meet daily, first thing in the morning, for two-and-a-half hours at Tata.

The curriculum is rigorous, Poore said, but he suspects the students will rise to the challenge and take the opportunity seriously.

During the first few weeks of the program, Poore said he observed that students, recognizing the Tata classroom as a professional environment, are taking on a more professional demeanor and some dress in more formal clothing for the program, changing clothes afterward.

 

Unchartered Territory

A few students will slide over into internships with Tata, and others will be working with other companies, but there are still some steps to be taken to make those internships happen, as many students are minors. 

“We’re talking about high school kids. It is unchartered territory for companies with interns, to have them at that age,” said Paul Stolt, communications director for Bentonville schools.

In the spirit of the CAPS model, Stolt said the plan is for students to also be involved in client relationships, acting as the services providers to small businesses, nonprofits and other entities that are looking for technology solutions.

The study area for this year’s class is IT solutions, and next year the plan is to add health professions, retail technologies, data analysis and construction trades, in addition to hospitality and culinary arts, which will be done in partnership with NWACC’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management program.

In 2017, Ignite will add advanced manufacturing, construction management, marketing and development, visual arts and production, business management, digital media and e-commerce, logistics and supply chain, business management, supplier support, specialty retail and merchandising pieces.

Walmart is another announced corporate partner of the program.

While Ignite offers first-hand experience and exposure to specific careers, its main focus is on basic professional skills.

“It’s an educational program that lets students explore maybe being a graphic artist or computer programmer, but the underlying current is developing those business and professional skills, the things they will carry with them, whatever they choose their profession to be,” Stolt said.

And, whether or not that profession requires a college degree.

 

Shift in Focus

With the Ignite program, Bentonville is joining the ranks of local educators who are moving away from a high school experience geared solely toward college-bound students, an approach that prevailed for several decades.

Sixty-six percent of seventh- through 12th-grade students in the Fayetteville School District, for example, are enrolled in a career education program of study.

Siloam Springs High School recently converted to a charter school in order to expand its vocational offerings to include modules on hydraulics, pneumatics, welding, industrial electronics and HVAC maintenance and operation.

The Career Academy of Siloam Springs opened this fall with 43 students, and the school is aiming to complete construction on a 10,000-SF industrial technologies building by mid-September, said Jody Wiggins, assistant superintendent of Siloam Springs Public Schools. 

Pea Ridge Manufacturing and Business Academy is a conversion charter that is in its second year, with 141 high school juniors and seniors enrolled in classes related to industrial technology, health care, marketing and supply chain management, plastic and metal fabrication and multimedia production.

Gravette High School has an assistant nursing program and HVAC training, and there are other examples throughout the region of programs that offer training and even certification for specific careers.

Other programs have more flexibility.

Springdale School District’s School of Innovation is in its second year and now boasts about 400 eighth- and ninth-graders.

The program, which will add a grade each year, allows students to access instruction at their own pace, said Megan Witonski, associate superintendent for Springdale schools.

At the School of Innovation, students can potentially earn credits at a more rapid rate, and can begin early working toward an associate degree or through training in a career path to earn a technical certificate.

The Rogers New Technology High School, on the other hand, coupled with career-readiness, teached college preparation.

It opened in 2013 and now has 560 students.

Bentonville’s Ignite program is designed to serve both students that will enter the workforce after high school and those who will pursue higher education, Stolt said.

 “We really feel that we need to have kids be future-ready. Their future might be college, it might be a career, it might be working and then going to college, but what’s constant in all of that is those underlying professional skills,” he said. “That’s one thing all of our strands put in place are going to work on — those skills of being able to collaborate, communicate, problem solve, think critically. [Those] are necessary whether you take a college path or career path.” 

 

Competence Curriculum

Workforce competency lessons, administered in partnership with the UA Sam M. Walton College of Businesses, will play a significant role in the Ignite program.

The lessons train students “in some of those basic soft skills that we know employers are saying graduates just don’t seem to have — negotiation skills, and the ability to problem solve, communicate, come off professionally,” Stolt said.

Like other programs in the region, Ignite will be tweaked based on the type of employees needed in the business community.

The initial program design is based on information in the Bentonville Blueprint and from the Northwest Arkansas Council.

“We really looked at what the community sees for the future of economic development in determining what kinds of strands we are going to try to bring into this program,” Stolt said.

Right now, Poore, Stolt and Andy Mays, director of technology at Bentonville schools, are running Ignite, but the plan is to hire a full-time manager of the program to bring it together within the next year.

Stolt said there’s a fluid nature to the program at this point, as the leadership is treating it like a startup business, or a beta prototype. “We’re starting with the ‘why’ and stepping back from there to see, how do we get to that?”

“If you’re going to be preaching collaboration and problem-solving and all those wonderful skills that everybody wants to have, you need to get out of the pulpit and walk down the aisles,” Stolt said.

Like any other startup, Ignite is looking for funding. The intention is that, once the program is rolled into the district, there will already be a good program running.

And, for Ignite’s leadership, the program’s focus will be to serve Northwest Arkansas as a whole.

“We are not looking at this as a siloed, Bentonville thing,” Stolt said.

The program plans to align and collaborate with programs that are already out there, and ultimately to start sharing students.

“We’re focused on looking at what’s going on in the community and aligning it with that, and not necessarily being the driver,” Stolt said.