Public Testimony Before the Committee on Executive Administration and Labor’s Public Roundtable on Job Training & Workforce Development

Good afternoon Chairperson Bonds, Committee Members, and staff. My name is Erin Bibo, and I am Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at CityWorks DC, a nonprofit focused on achieving two inextricably linked goals: 1) DC youth and young adults are prepared for, hired into, and succeeding in the good jobs we have in our city and region. 2) Local industries are confidently relying on local talent to meet their workforce needs. I’m also a Ward 6 resident and parent of three DCPS students. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on job training and workforce development in our city. While we still have a very far way to go to make it the rule, rather than the exception, that the graduates of our city’s education and training programs are employed in our city’s good jobs, there are some bright spots that I would like to talk about today, in hopes that they can continue to be supported and amplified.

1. The city’s Career Academies in our Public and Public Charter Schools are - if implemented with fidelity- doing an exceptional job preparing our students for college and career. Career Academy students are outpacing their peers in so many of the outcomes we care about: attendance, GPA, graduation, college going and completion are all up.  Behavior challenges are down. And if you’ve spent time in a Career Academy class or two, it’s almost immediately evident why. The best example I saw was at HD Woodson’s IT Academy a few years ago. I was in an IT Course being taught by Angelique Sykes, and the students were working on survey apps they were developing for the Department of Veterans Affairs- a key industry partner of the Academy.  The students were using their IT skills to build the app, their ELA class skills to carefully write the content of the survey questions, and they were planning to use their Math class skills to analyze the survey outcome data. It was real, and it was preparing students for the real world, and the students knew it, and their engagement was electric. I am glad of the city’s continued investments in these Career Academies, and hope that they continue to hold high standards to ensure they are implemented with fidelity. 

2. Locally-based companies including Amazon, Accenture, and Enlightened, Inc. have hired over 70 Careerwise Modern Youth Apprenticeships as a strategy to hire high school or college students to work while getting on-the-job training, aligned classroom experience, and postsecondary credit/ industry certification. Apprentices work over the course of  1-3 years for 2,000 hours, and learn while they earn.  Apprenticeships are available now in four sectors: IT, Business Operations, Finance, and Health Care. The Health Care Apprenticeship - now called DC HEAL by the DC Hospital Association - is working with Children’s National, Cedar Hill, and Whitman Walker as a part of the city’s new Ward 8-based Health Care investments. Apprenticeships are a win-win for all - a proven investment for companies and a path to career success for students. We are excited to see the city’s continued investment in apprenticeship. 

3. The Hire Local DC Industry Led Sector Partnerships, which we co-convene with the Federal City Council, were established at the request of local construction and hospitality leaders. When I say industry-led, I mean it. The employers identify their local talent pipeline priorities and challenges; they propose solutions, and then they ask strategic partners - government agencies, schools, universities, and training providers - to provide support. The feedback loop these partnerships have established has been amazing. Industry leaders have articulated their specific expectations around job readiness. This has resulted in enhanced clarity among education and training providers in terms of what their candidates needed to be job ready.  

In addition, we had a productive session with DOES Director Morris-Hughes in which the leaders of the construction industry engaged with the Director in a dialogue on the greatest barriers they face to hiring local talent. They identified specific ideas for innovative pilots relating to First Source and transportation barriers, specifically. The team at the Workforce Investment Council is revising some of their resources based on the industry leaders’ feedback. Since Fall 2023, we have hosted 6 hiring events which have provided over 350 local residents with job offers. The Sector partnership has activated over 80 employers, and engages over 60 education and training providers to achieve a goal of local industries meeting their hiring needs with qualified, local talent. We’re excited about the city’s involvement in the sector partnerships, and expanding to more sectors in the future. 

4. The DC Office of Education Through Employment Pathways will finally provide us with insights such as the extent to which the graduates of our publicly-funded education and training programs are employed and earning a living wage in our city. I can only imagine you are as excited as I am to better understand which publicly-funded investments actually work to prepare our residents for a career - this is exactly what you are looking for to be able to make outcomes-informed investments in our workforce programs.  The ETEP has also begun to produce analyses, and is poised to publish briefs sharing the early career outcomes of our public schools’ alumni. This will be sobering, but an incredibly important resource for educators, government leaders, parents, and students. In 2021, the first round of the Early Career Outcomes survey results found unequivocally that DC students who had built their career assets during high school had significantly higher incomes, and were more likely to report feeling financially stable, fulfilled in their career, and optimistic about the future.  

Thank you for your continued leadership and for elevating this important topic today. I’m happy to answer any questions. Thank you.