Greater Cleveland Career Consortium launches inaugural strategic framework, highlights cross-sector collaboration to support career exploration and readiness for Cuyahoga County students
For Immediate Release
CLEVELAND (May 22, 2024) – The Greater Cleveland Career Consortium (GCCC) hosted partners from education, nonprofit, industry, philanthropic, and public sectors on Wednesday to unveil the collective impact’s three-year strategic priorities. GCCC’s 2024 Annual Convening marks two years of collaboration that has resulted in career exploration, planning, and readiness programming in eleven Cuyahoga County school districts.
GCCC, launched in March 2022, is a group of cross-sector partners committed through a common agenda to develop and implement a comprehensive, coordinated, and community-wide approach to career exploration and readiness that empowers young Greater Clevelanders, sets them up for success, and advances regional economic prosperity. GCCC partners with school districts to embed the Planning and Career Exploration (PACE) curriculum for all 6th-12th grade students during the school day, and connect employers with local school districts, students, and families to offer work-based learning experiences to students to help build our regional workforce.
“We are excited to share our strategic priorities that will guide this work through 2026. GCCC has spent the last two years building this systems-level approach to preparing the region’s future workforce through PACE. We aim to build great impact in Greater Cleveland,” said Autumn Russell, GCCC’s President & CEO. “GCCC is only possible because partners across sectors have come together with a shared vision and a common agenda to drive us toward that vision. We look forward to continuously improving PACE to keep up with ever-evolving industry needs in the years to come.”
PACE was launched in Cleveland Metropolitan School District in November 2021, and has since, rolled out into ten additional first-ring school districts. This convening offered an opportunity for participating school districts to engage with industry and intermediary partners and youth-serving nonprofits, both through a level-setting plenary session and working sessions for PACE implementers to plan for the upcoming school year.
“GCCC’s Annual Convening is a critical opportunity for stakeholders across our region to hear the progress we’ve collectively made in rolling out PACE in school districts,” shared Bill Wagner, Director of the First Ring Schools Collaborative at the Education Service Center of Northeast Ohio and member of GCCC’s Leadership Council. “Our districts have been working closely with GCCC partners to create and implement career exploration and readiness opportunities for our students and today marks both a celebration of progress to date and a chance to look ahead at the future impact we will make together.”
The convening’s sessions included a rollout of GCCC’s strategic framework, a panel of cross-sector leaders discussing the power of collective impact, and an update on GCCC’s progress.
For more information and to access GCCC’s strategic priorities, visit www.greaterclecc.org.
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Media Contact
Katie Brennan, Greater Cleveland Career Consortium Director of Development & Stakeholder Engagement, kbrennan@greaterclecc.org, 440-313-5976