Network
After years of deep partnership with rural communities across the state, Colorado Succeeds & CEI understand what it takes to help communities develop, implement, and sustain tangible change in the way they approach career-connected learning, community partnership, and academic relevance to real-world skills and experiences. These learnings are now expanding across the state, establishing a new approach to education centered on student engagement, school relevance, career-connected learning, and business and community partnership.
Founding Cohort
HTI 2.0 Network
Statewide Investment in Rural Collaboration
Thanks to the State of Colorado’s Rural Coaction investment, the HTI network is growing to include nearly 50 districts. This expansion elevates our partnership across the state with groups building regional educonomies to ensure pathways and opportunities across rural Colorado.
This unprecedented expansion of rural networks creates an opportunity to enhance career-connected learning, regional collaboration, school-community partnerships, and networked learning and knowledge sharing in Colorado with regional and national implications.
HTI Elements of Success
Through HTI, communities commit to developing homegrown, career-connected learning programs. Communities collaborate to design and implement ways to tap into the potential of local talent early on while students are still in middle and high school – so that they can build homegrown opportunity and pathways to serve the unique needs of business and industry in their local community.
There are six essential components of success:
Local community leadership and design teams comprised of K-12, business, and higher education leaders.
Support to build a high-quality profile of a high school graduate that aligns with local community values.
Participation in a well-supported process to design programs intended to dramatically improve access to pathways that lead to economic opportunity when students leave school.
Colorado-grown inspiration in the form of well-documented innovations already underway in other communities.
Specific technical assistance for local businesses to sustainably work with education systems.
The opportunity for funding to launch designs in communities in the second phase of the project, with the ultimate intent to create high-quality proof points of and champions for this work.
Founding Cohort
Through diverse stakeholder engagement, the first cohort of HTI districts developed a shared vision for graduates, expanded career-connected learning opportunities for students, and developed stronger relationships with businesses and their local communities.
These districts introduced new systems, class schedules, graduation requirements, and numerous other changes despite the challenges of the pandemic. This new mindset and approach to teaching and learning is leading them toward big ideas for what their success means for regional collaboration as the HTI network reaches across Colorado.
In the 2021–22 school year, HTI students completed:
Internships
Explored career pathway
Certifications or industry credentials
Concurrent enrollment credits earned
HTI 2.0 Network
As HTI grows to include new districts and partners, these communities participate in a cohort-based model to collaborate and resource share as they develop new plans for student engagement and economic prosperity in their region.