Last month, UNITE-LA supported the monthly R.E.A.L. EDWD Committee meeting, which featured a discussion with Ben Chida, Chief Deputy Cabinet Secretary, Office of the Governor.

UNITE-LA participated in the L.A. Area Chamber’s 2024 ACCESS D.C. trip, which also consisted of an advocacy day specifically for the Valley Industry Commerce Association (VICA), as well as one for UNITE-LA and our early education partners.

Last fall, UNITE-LA President Alysia Bell attended an East Coast early education tour hosted by Early Edge California with various CA early education advocates, funders and elected officials.

On March 8, UNITE-LA, LAEDC, Orange County Business Council and Orange County Department of Education co-hosted an L.A./O.C. Master Plan for Career Education regional convening with the Office of California Governor Newsom and WestEd. More than 100 leaders from education, workforce development, government and community organizations reflected on existing challenges and ways to streamline our education system's approach to preparing students and adults for high-paying careers.

VOLUNTEER ORIENTATION
UNITE-LA held its first Step into Tech Volunteer Orientation last month and were joined by 10 new and returning volunteers from Facebook, Create Music Group, Cisco, Snap, Manufacturers Bank and Acena Consulting. Volunteers learned about the why and who of Step into Tech and were provided a program overview that included volunteer roles and responsibilities. Interested in volunteering? Sign up here.

COHORT 5 LAUNCHED THIS MONTH
Last month, UNITE-LA kicked off the fifth cohort of Step into Tech with an impressive 22 participants, marking our largest cohort yet. UNITE-LA wasted no time and jumped into a vibrant networking session. The session commenced with an engaging and informative overview of networking delivered by our outstanding volunteer, Nick Pyzow. Both our participants and volunteers warmly received the presentation.

UNITE-LA's National Strategic Partnerships team has been scouring workforce trends to bring you February's edition of the Education & Talent Development Newsletter!

In February, the L.A. Unified Community Schools Steering Committee (CSSC) finalized the selection and designation of eight schools to join Cohort 5 of the Community Schools Initiative (CSI). This comes after UNITE-LA's role in co-creating solutions and leading efforts in school recruitment, application revisions, the creation of a scoring rubric to better align with the state's Community Schools framework, scorer trainings and the synthesizing of application scores and narratives from August to December 2023. The CSSC is thrilled to welcome this new and diverse group of schools, which includes 24th Street Elementary School, Charnock Elementary School, Cheremoya Elementary School, Coliseum Elementary School, Hancock Park Elementary School, Woodland Hills Academy Middle School, Public Service Community School at Diego Rivera Learning Complex and Lexington Primary Center.

UNITE-LA was front and center at last month's California Workforce Associations' Youth Summit.

Last month, members of the UNITE-LA Programs Team were busy representing UNITE-LA throughout Los Angeles.

The UNITE-LA Programs team hosted 65 partners for its Spring 2024 Open House in early February.