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ACHIEVEMENT
COUNTS NEEDS VOLUNTEERS TO SPEAK
TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
BALTIMORE, MD (8/5/03) --- The Maryland Business Roundtable for
Education (MBRT) is looking for young, energetic volunteers from
the working world to participate on its Achievement
Counts Speakers Bureau.
The
Speakers Bureau is part of a comprehensive program designed to show
students the vital connection between achievement in school and
success in college and the workplace.
"Achievement
Counts speakers challenge students to focus on their futures
by providing them with concrete reasons why working hard in high
school will translate into broader opportunities in their personal
and professional lives," says MBRT Executive Director June Streckfus.
"Our speakers offer students both a sympathetic ear and a wake-up
call, a ray of hope and a shot in the arm."
Achievement
Counts volunteers will be going into ninth grade classrooms
throughout Maryland, beginning this fall. Last school year, more
than 850 young workers made classroom presentations to some 55,000
high school freshmen in 100 high schools statewide through MBRT's
Achievement Counts Speakers Bureau. For the coming school
year, MBRT anticipates 1,200 volunteers will be needed to meet expanded
demand. The program will be offered this fall in 13 Maryland counties
and Baltimore City.
Volunteer
speakers are asked to commit to doing three to four classroom presentations.
Before entering the classroom, they are equipped with a lesson plan
and receive 2 ½ hours of training on facilitating the Achievement
Counts presentation. The messages they deliver are based on their
own experiences in the working world, and focus on the importance
of working hard and building a strong transcript while in school.
"Our
speakers' key messages are the same, but each speaker brings his
or her unique perspective, stressing things that they think are
important to students and will help students to get ahead," Ms.
Streckfus explains. Volunteers have been in the workforce for a
few years, but are still able to relate easily to high school students.
The program currently is looking for both college graduates and
individuals who entered the workforce directly out of high school.
The
Achievement Counts campaign has drawn high praise from
educators, businesses, parents, and students, both locally and nationally.
The National Alliance of Business and the national Business Roundtable
have named the program a national best practice, while Maryland
State Superintendent of Schools Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick has called
the initiative, "one of the best conceived - and most successful
- programs I have seen in my career in education."
In addition to the Speakers Bureau, the Achievement Counts
campaign includes Parents Count - a program
providing valuable information to parents on how they can help their
children to succeed in school - and the Workforce
Needs Survey, a regular survey of Maryland employers and the
skills they expect new employees to bring with them to the job.
The Achievement Counts campaign also is developing
a website specifically designed to capture the attention of
teens. This interactive site will introduce high school students
to a variety of careers and the skills that are needed for each.
The entire Achievement Counts program was designed with
input from students "in order to give them what they want and what
they need: reasons, consequences, and inspiration," says Ms. Streckfus.
"We identified nontraditional messengers to whom students could
relate and strong messages that would heighten teens' understanding
of why high school is so important to their futures." The Maryland
Business Roundtable for Education is a coalition of more than 100
major Maryland employers committed to improving student achievement
in the state.
To
volunteer for the Achievement Counts Speakers Bureau, sign
up here, contact MBRT at 410-727-0448 or email latara@mbrt.org.
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