What You Can Do

Tips for Business and Community

At the work site, encourage employees to be involved in their children's learning at school and at home in new and creative ways so that all families can support their children's academic achievement and so that children engage in healthy behaviors. Encourage employees to remain involved.

Be actively involved in dropout prevention. As business owners and community leaders, set the example. Public support for public education means more than just building facilities or developing new schools/programs—it means requiring accountability, staying involved, and ensuring adequate and equitable funding.

• Develop and adopt family-friendly policies that allow time for employees to attend parent teacher conferences and enable student workers to attend classes on time and ready to learn.
• Encourage "adopt a school" programs, volunteerism, and community-led projects in schools.

Support career education and workforce readiness programs in schools so that students see the connection between school and careers after graduation. To ensure that students have the skills they need for these careers, integrate 21st century skills into the curriculum and provide all students with access to 21st century technology.

• Help frame the future of the classroom by proactively supporting funding initiatives that put children first.
• Advocate for and support legislation that provides high-quality professional development for educators and consistent training and support in utilizing technology to help students learn.
• Connect schools with the real world to make school and learning relevant to those who are thinking of dropping out.

Expand students' graduation options through creative partnerships with high schools, vocational schools, and community colleges in career and technical fields and with alternative schools so that students have other ways to earn high school diplomas.

• Advocate for policies and legislation that support these programs through state legislatures.
• Sponsor work co-op programs that tie continued employment to high school graduation.