A collaboration between educators and business leaders requires several components, notes Melissa Stiffler, career and technical education director for Iola-USD 257.
Schools want to produce skilled graduates; businesses want a productive workforce.
That said, the challenge is considerably more difficult when they’re not on the same page.
Stiffler, speaking at Wednesday’s “Workforce Connections” symposium at Iola High School, recounted a conversation a few years back with a business representative about a certification program.
Midway through the conversation, the business rep stopped Stiffler in her tracks.
Phrases such as “curriculum,” “pathways” and even “CTE” were falling on deaf ears because those aren’t common terms used in most businesses.
“That became a lightbulb moment for me,” Stiffler said. “We’re not using the same language.”
Such a concept led to Wednesday’s get-together, drawing a crowd of more than 70 to the IHS Lecture Hall.
They spoke of several success stories, and challenges that lie ahead as students enter the workforce after graduation.
STIFFLER kick-started the discussion by noting the “20 to 2” rule.
Take a group of 20 incoming freshmen, and roughly a third will drop out before they graduate high school.
Stiffler noted that the statistic is a national one; Kansas’s is a bit better. 
But for the purposes of the illustration, Stiffler crossed off five of the students to represent the dropouts.
Of the remaining 15, five more will go directly into the workforce after high school.
Of the 10 remaining, eight will become college freshmen, Stiffler continued.
