Indianapolis, Indiana is one of the six sites selected to participate in the New Skills ready network. This five-year initiative, launched by JPMorgan Chase in 2020, aims to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways. In the third year of the initiative, the Indianapolis, Indiana, New Skills ready network team built on work conducted in the first two years of the initiative, focusing heavily on developing a new career pathway and building advising tools.

Updates from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education (CHE):

• We have completed 6 out of 8 in-person CTE District “Performance Labs” site visits, which included three hours of direct support from our team.  Our goal was to develop a common language and understanding of what equity and access look like across the state, focusing on sub-groups such as students with disabilities, students from economically disadvantaged families and students who are English learners.
• We have partnered with Advanced CTE who have developed new data tools that allow us to provide district specific and thorough disaggregated data.  By providing these improved reports,  CTE districts are now able to review 4 years of CTE cohort data (2022-2026) that may exist among special populations, identify barriers and develop strategies for addressing their students’ needs.   

Updates from Indiana University Indianapolis:

• IU Indianapolis is now awarding students credit hours for completion of Google certificates for coding courses that are done on the Forage website.
• IU Indianapolis is still working on expanding automatic admissions to charter schools.  

Updates from Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS):

• Launched writing centers in three new schools this year—Arsenal Tech, Crispus Attucks, and George Washington. These centers are essential in supporting students’ access to early college courses.
• Plans to launch an early college program at George Washington HS beginning in SY 24-25.
• Indiana College Core Programs are up and running at Crispus Attucks and Arsenal Tech.

View IPS PSR UPDATES FALL/WINTER 2023 Presentation

Updates from Ascend Indiana:

Accelerator Initiative  

• Cohort I sites continued to scale and evolve their youth apprenticeship programs across the year, placing 500+ youth apprentices, engaging 50+ employers, and partnering with 30+ schools. 
• Cohort II was launched in fall 2023, with five additional Indiana intermediaries embarking on a six-month design phase to develop a strategic plan to establish youth apprenticeship programming in their region. 
• Together, the Accelerator Cohort I and II sites serve 46 of Indiana’s 92 counties, expanding the reach of youth apprentice programming to half of the state. 

Community of Practice Events 

• The Indiana YA Community of Practice convened twice across the year, bringing together 100+ stakeholders from intermediaries, K-12, higher education, and government to continue to unpack leading challenges, share best practices, and define next steps to advance the state’s YA programs. In summer 2023, the COP convened in Bloomington to hear firsthand from K-12 partners and apprentices on their experiences and critical takeaways for high-quality programs. In winter 2023, the COP convened in Indianapolis to discuss opportunities and strategies to scale employer engagement across the state.   
• Ascend and Accelerator Cohort I team members attended the CareerWise and PAYA’s National Youth Apprenticeship Summit in NYC in October 2023, joining 200+ other attendees from across the country to learn how NYC employers are leaning in to scale YA, and K-12 and postsecondary institutions are changing systems to create an enabling environment for YA as well as to hear from NYC apprentices on their experiences. 
• Indiana CEMETS team members returned to Zurich, Switzerland, in summer 2023 to participate in the CEMETS Alumni Institute, joining other alumni from Nepal, Costa Rica, Ukraine, Washington DC, Uzbekistan, South Africa, Paraguay, Uruguay, California, Colorado, and Benin to share progress updates and feedback with one another and further collaborate on changing global education systems for the better. 
• An Indiana delegation joined five other states in the National Governor Association’s YA Policy Academy, a year-long initiative to share policies that broadly support career readiness ecosystems and foster alignment across education and workforce systems, as well as policies that specifically uplift youth apprenticeship programs and facilitate greater student, employer and partner participation. 
• In September 2023, the Indy Chamber’s Leadership Exchange trip brought 120 Indiana leaders to Zurich, Switzerland, to introduce those stakeholders to the Swiss Apprenticeship Model and identify systems-level collaborative strategies to scale employer engagement in youth apprenticeship programming across Indiana.  
• Indiana workforce, K-12, and higher education stakeholders traveled to Vail Valley, Colorado, to attend the final Brookings Earn and Learn Convening, learning more about Colorado’s YA programming and infrastructure and collaborating with national partners to identify potential strategies for Indiana programs. 

Updates from Modern Apprenticeship (MAP):

• The biggest win was to have buy-in from the Indiana General assembly, who took 3 apprentices starting in January for the Legislative Services Agency, which is huge from a PR perspective.
• Established partnerships with financial services companies and associations to present MAP as a pipeline strategy for business and commercial clients.
• We were able to convert IU, who have hired an apprentice as part of their IT pipeline, with intentions to bring more on in subsequent cycles.

To learn more about NSRN or the updates provided above, email Shaylinn Aleman at [email protected].