Education initiative expanding U-46 career fair, launching new efforts

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Central Unit District 301 no longer is a member of ACE.

An annual career expo for Elgin Area School District U-46 eighth-graders is being expanded next school year and will be held at a larger venue.

Last year's career expo, held in October at Elgin Community College, drew roughly 700 students. The fair featured more than 45 businesses and organizations showcasing over 65 careers.

"We are moving to an expo format where all eighth-graders will be able to participate in the program," said Nancy Coleman, executive director of the Alignment Collaborative for Education, or ACE which organizes the expo with the U-46 Citizens' Advisory Council. "This year we will be able to serve over 2,800 (students)."

Coleman said the expo will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 12 - a Wednesday instead of during the weekend as in years past - at the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates. There will be parent information sessions at each of the middle schools before the event.

"We are working very hard to recruit business and community exhibitors across the 11 communities," Coleman said. "Last year, we bumped around 45 to 50 exhibitors. I'm hoping with us moving to the Sears Centre we even have more room that we may be able to attract additional exhibitors."

ACE, which began in 2015, is a partnership among U-46, ECC, Judson University, the city of Elgin, Gail Borden Public Library, the villages of Bartlett, Burlington and Hanover Park, Hanover Township, Advocate Sherman Hospital, the Grand Victoria Foundation, United Way of Elgin, and other government, nonprofit, business and community groups.

Elgin-based ACE's goals are to build more business and industry partnerships to train a future workforce better aligned to market demands, to support early childhood education intervention, to provide trauma-informed care in schools, and to support and expand career and technical education opportunities.

Coleman and other leaders updated the U-46 school board Monday night on those efforts.

Officials are working to bring together community partners to join a national campaign on grade-level reading. The group has started a series of roundtables with industry partners and plans to survey businesses about workplace-based learning opportunities. It also is piloting a trauma-informed care approach to teaching at five U-46 schools this year with employees being trained on resiliency.

Local businesses and governments help fund ACE, providing more than $450,000 in the last three years. U-46 has granted another $75,000 to the group over the next three years.

The group will launch a new website by month's end, publish newsletters starting in April with regular updates and an annual report, Coleman said.