WE Will! K-16 Workforce and Education Collaborative will address systemic barriers and bridge educational gaps for underrepresented students within the Merced, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin Counties.
Through collaborative intersegmental efforts, we empower all students with the skills, knowledge, and opportunities necessary to thrive in critical workforce sectors.
Our commitment to accountability, sustainability, and equity drives us to create robust K-16 pathways that align educational systems and workforce needs, ensuring equitable outcomes and closing opportunity gaps.
Overarching Goals
- TRANSITION
- Increase the number of socio-economically disadvantaged high school students that transition to and through a community college to a four-year institution
- AFFORDABILITY
- Increase dual enrollment offerings, participation, and course completion along with FAFSA/CADAA completion for socio-economically disadvantaged students for the region’s TK-12 student population.
- WORK BASED LEARNING
- Increase the number of students participating in quality WBL experiences in the health and education industry sectors.
- READINESS
- Improve TK-12 college and career readiness by: increasing a-g completion rates, increasing A-G approved course offerings, and increasing CTE health and education pathway completion rates.
Design Principles
- Our decisions will put the priorities and needs of students first.
- Our actions will promote long term success of the WE Will! K16 Collaborative.
- Our goals will prioritize work that catalyzes intersegmental collaboration across systems to ensure equity over equality and be responsive togeographic needs.
- Our engagement with workforce and education will support successful transitions for students into their careers.
- Our infrastructure will seek to leverage existing human and capital resources to serve as many K16 students as possible through supporting practices that are evidence based.
- Our focus will be data informed systems change through academic acceleration and career preparation.
- Our decisions will be guided by industry voices to continuously validate current and future strategy.
Our Team
McKenna Salazar
Executive Director
Diana Hernandez
Assistant Director
Erick Castro
Programmer
Noah Fuentes
Business Officer
Collaborative Timeline
Planning
Identify and measure outcomes and goals. Establish strong partnerships.
Action
Allocate funding to partners and engage in cross-county collaboration with educators and workforce professionals.
Impact
Elevate student success with enhanced college and career readiness, work-based learning experiences, and creating solutions for affordability and sustainable pathways.