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 Community Type Medium-sized city and surrounding tri-county area; population of approximately 1.2 million. Geographic RegionSouth Overview The Skillpoint Alliance (formerly the Capital Area Training Foundation) is a nonprofit organization that strives to close the education and workforce gap for youth and adults in Central Texas by serving as a broker among industry, education, and the community. As an employer-led partner of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Skillpoint Alliance is perfectly positioned to help educators and community-based organizations align their curricula with industry needs in the region. With the support of local, federal, and private funds, Skillpoint Alliance also provides direct services—computer literacy, workplace literacy, and customized industry-based training—to the emerging, transitional, and incumbent workforce. Skillpoint Alliance is governed by a 20-member board of directors representing its public and private partnerships. Many members are business leaders, who serve because they recognize that, to remain competitive, they need to work with education leaders to give local residents opportunities for employment and advancement. Other board members are school district and higher education representatives and public officials. The board members provide Skillpoint with strategic direction and expert advice, foster relationships with potential employers, and identify funding and partnership opportunities. Skillpoint also has steering committees focused on industry clusters (e.g., healthcare, semiconductors, IT and digital media) that assist learners with college and work experience through scholarships and work-based learning, coordinate curricula between high school and college, and work with educators to ensure that industry needs are being met. Partnership Highlights School-Based Computer Labs Serve Students and Adults In addition to its relationship with the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Skillpoint Alliance has partnerships with businesses, local school districts, higher education institutions, the workforce investment board, faith- and community-based organizations, and public agencies to address the area’s workforce and education needs. For example, with start-up money from the mayor, Skillpoint collaborated with the Austin Independent School District to open a Community Technology Training Center (CTTC) in a local high school in 1999. The CTTC is a computer lab that provides training and career development to adults at night while strengthening the school’s technology capacity by day. Skillpoint expanded the project to a second high school in 2000 by leveraging resources from the school district, the private sector (e.g., Dell Foundation, Austin@Work Partnership), and a federal Community Technology Center grant. The CTTCs would not be successful without support and approval at both the district and school levels. Getting the school district to agree to the project was not enough; earning and maintaining support from the schools’ principals and staff is also essential. This requires a variety of strategies, such as publicly crediting the schools for their contributions whenever possible, and ensuring that classrooms hosting the labs are left as they were found by the adult programs. Depending on funding, the CTTCs also donate computer equipment to the school district, which provide an additional incentive and benefit. Initially, Skillpoint also had to provide most of the technical support for the computer labs. Although costly, in the end it paid off. The schools and district have since developed an infrastructure to support the labs. This infrastructure continues to grow as a result of the “synergy” created between public and private interests. The CTTCs are instrumental in building the IT infrastructure at under-resourced campuses where each dollar invested at the campus multiplies in value through this synergy between public and private interests. Linking the Construction Industry to the Community College Ensuring that everyone involved with a partnership understands and supports the project has been key to Skillpoint’s successes with other collaborations as well. For example, Skillpoint has worked closely with the leadership and staff at Austin Community College (ACC) on the Construction Gateway Training Program. Since 1994, the two have been collaborating with the local construction industry to provide at-risk youth and adults facing major barriers to entering the workforce, such as ex-convicts and the homeless, with five weeks of rigorous training in construction skills. Developed by the Association of Builders and Contractors (ABC), the curriculum introduces students to trades such as carpentry, masonry, and plumbing. It is taught by accredited instructors at ACC. Graduates receive nine hours of college credit, employability certification, job skills training and placement services, hands-on experience, six months’ worth of credit toward an ABC apprenticeship, and first aid and OSHA certification.  Supplemental Materials
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