Students@Work offers valuable experience for middle schoolers

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RALEIGH, N.C. – Middle school students throughout North Carolina will get a unique opportunity this week to connect what they are learning in school to future career opportunities with Students@Work.

All this week (March 2-6) more than 100 companies will look to help raise North Carolina’s graduation rate by offering 22,500 middle school students a chance to look at the local workplace. Throughout the week, participating students will take part in job shadowing or job mentoring programs to help them connect academic achievement with future occupations.

Students@Work is a joint initiative between the North Carolina Business Committee for Education (NCBCE) and the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.

“Students@Work offers a window to the workplace for North Carolina’s students,” said State Superintendent June Atkinson. “Through the opportunities that are provided to them by our state’s businesses, they are able to see the endless possibilities that lie before them if they stay in school and graduate.”

NCBCE businesses listed as participants in Students@Work 2015 include: AT&T, BB&T, BCBSNC, Biltmore, Biogen Idec, Brady Energy Services, CastleBranch, Caterpillar, CenturyLink, Cisco, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Coastal Federal Credit Union, Duke Energy, EMC, Facebook, Fidelity, Firestone Fibers and Textiles, GE Aviation, Gerber Collision, Google, Haddock Collision Centers, John Deere, LaBella Associates, Lenovo, LexisNexis, LKQ Corporation, MCNC, Mission Health, NetApp, The Omni Grove Park Inn, PSNC, Red Hat, RTI, Samet, Smith Anderson, Smith Moore Leatherwood, State Employees’ Credit Union, SteelFab, Inc., Strategic Educational Alliances, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, WakeMed, Wells Fargo, West Pharmaceuticals, Womble Carlyle, and W.R. Rayson.

Located in the Office of the Governor, the NCBCE is a nonpartisan, nonprofit comprised of North Carolina’s corporate leaders. The organization seeks to ensure that every student in North Carolina graduates from high school ready for life and work in a global society.

Students@Work centers its efforts around middle school students because middle school is a crucial time for dropout prevention, according to NCBCE. The program helps to emphasize future career options as well as the importance of staying in school – before students enter the ninth-grade.

For more on Students@Work, visit the NCBCE website at www.ncbce.org.