SkillsUSA Partners Provide Support to Take SkillsUSA Career Essentials to the Virtual Classroom

Published: April 23, 2020

Educational Curriculum offered during COVID-19 Pandemic

Leesburg, Va. — The current pandemic has forced instructors and school administrators to quickly move their courses to online environments. Thanks to the generosity of select SkillsUSA partners who want to support online learning, SkillsUSA is now providing free access to the SkillsUSA Career Essentials suite. Access for up to 40,000 students will be provided by SkillsUSA through this partner support. SkillsUSA partners who have joined in the effort to date include CHANNELLOCK, Distribution Contractors Association (DCA), Ferguson Enterprises Inc., Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, Lowe’s Companies, Pella Corporation and Volvo Construction Equipment. SkillsUSA Career Essentials is an online career-readiness resource for students built to engage learners in defining, implementing and measuring their personal skills, workplace skills and technical skills grounded in academics. Those three areas make up the SkillsUSA Framework, the foundation of SkillsUSA’s mission to empower its members to become world-class workers, leaders and responsible American citizens. The Career Essentials curricula benefits middle school, high school, college/postsecondary and adult learners. The curriculum bundles available through this offer are normally valued between $25 to $65. “We’re thrilled our partners stepped up to generously sponsor Career Essentials to help more SkillsUSA students master career readiness skills,” said SkillsUSA executive director Chelle Travis. “These partnerships support learning while school systems are closed. By working together, we can help our instructors educate America’s future workforce with the least amount of disruption to learning.” The SkillsUSA Career Essentials resources being shared at this time include an exploratory curriculum bundle designed for middle school students, a fundamental curriculum bundle designed for 9th and 10th grade students, and an advanced curriculum bundle designed for 11th and 12th grade students. Each curriculum bundle includes a pre-assessment, a post-assessment and units of instructional e-modules with related project activities. Students who successfully earn a minimum score of 80% on the post-assessment achieve a credential validated by industry. To learn more about this SkillsUSA partner-supported offer, go to: https://www.skillsusa.org/complimentary-access-skillsusa-career-essentials/.

About SkillsUSA

SkillsUSA is a nonprofit partnership of education and industry founded in 1965 to strengthen our nation’s skilled workforce. Driven by employer demand, SkillsUSA helps students develop necessary personal and workplace skills along with technical skills grounded in academics. This SkillsUSA Framework empowers every student to succeed at work and in life, while helping to close the skills gap in which millions of positions go unfilled. Through SkillsUSA’s championships program and curricula, employers have long ensured schools are teaching relevant technical skills, and with SkillsUSA’s new credentialing process, they can now assess how ready potential employees are for the job. SkillsUSA has more than 372,000 annual paid members nationwide in high schools, colleges and middle schools, covering over 130 trade, technical and skilled service occupations, and is recognized by the U.S. departments of Education and Labor as integral to career and technical education. With the addition of our alumni, membership is 434,141. We have served nearly 14 million members since 1965. For more information: www.skillsusa.org.
SkillsUSA Contacts
Jane Short or Karen Kitzel, SkillsUSA 703-777-8810 jshort@skillsusa.org or kkitzel@skillsusa.org

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703-737-0612

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703-737-0607

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