Junior Achievement of Central Florida

First accomplishment:junior Achievement is committed to improving the lives of students, their families and our community; envisioning a world in which young people have the skillset and mindset to build thriving communities by providing educational programming focused on financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship for students in orange, osceola, volusia and seminole counties. Within these counties, Junior Achievement of Central Florida works with an intentional focus on title i schools. Title i schools serve a high percentage of students from low-income families who are struggling to make academic progress, and students enrolled in these schools are often heavily minority and include migrant family students, students with limited english proficiency, homeless students, and at-risk students struggling with the negative and generational effects of poverty. Junior Achievement of Central Florida has served more than 2,000,000 students since its inception. During the 2021/22 school year, the impacts of the pandemic continue to bring challenges with building on student learning loss. In spite of those challenges, ja successfully provided more than 35,000 Central Florida students with nearly a million hours of instruction designed to influence their career readiness, entrepreneurial mindset, and their financial capability over time. Notable program outcomes from this past year include:- nearly 481,000 hours of classroom instruction to almost 20,000 graduating seniors through the ja finance park virtual program. This 25-hour program helps students become financially capable as they embark on the "real world" of responsibilities that await them after graduation. Through a new digital format, teachers can now deliver every lesson for students learning in class or directly from home at the same time. Jacf works with school district leaders, classroom teachers and business partners to ensure that all students can benefit from ja finance park virtual and its ja fpv student simulation. Using an avatar with an assigned life scenario, students apply their new knowledge and use the ja fpv simulation to budget for various life stages, so they can identify their changing needs and wants through retirement. - participation of over 5,600 middle school students in an innovative, career exploration learning experience, redesigned for the remote learning environment (ja inspire, see accomplishment 3 below).- enrollment of 781 students in the 3de program across oak ridge and osceola high schools. These students were partnered with 150 business professionals to develop skills in communication, collaboration and critical thinking. Over the almost 700 hours of volunteer service, the students received business coaching in developing solutions to real-world business problems provided by those same business partners. The 2022/23 school year will feature the first senior class at both schools in addition to the launch of our third school, ocoee high school.

Third accomplishment:ja inspire is the perfect example of a program that provides practical information about preparing students for life beyond the classroom. Ja inspire is both classroom and event-based and consists of three segments: 1) eight hours of in-class sessions presented by the classroom teacher; 2) the hands-on ja inspire expo; and 3) an in-class debrief. During the ja inspire expo, students participate in hands-on activities, often using equipment or tools used within that profession. The multi-hour experience is configurable to align with local industry and career opportunities specific to regions in Central Florida and is designed for young people to elevate their career planning efforts to position themselves as the future talent pipeline in Central florida.ja inspire brings together the business community and local schools and is designed to introduce middle school students to their futures: high school, college and beyond. Launched in may 2018 by jacf as the first event of its kind anywhere in Florida, the inaugural ja inspire program reached nearly 3,000 eighth graders from all 14 school districts of osceola (sdoc) public schools. Students visited the osceola heritage park and toured 47,000 square feet of interactive, hands-on career stations organized by high wage/high growth industries specific to the area. For the 2021/22 school year, ja delivered nearly 23,000 hours of classroom instruction and experiential learning to almost 5,600 area 8th graders participating in the fifth annual ja inspire program. To accommodate the last minute pivot to virtual in response to the omicron variant, and the districts cancelling field trips, the program transitioned last year to "ja inspire virtual" which allowed students to experience a virtual career fair while the face-to-face convention center visit had to pause during the pandemic. This innovative virtual platform served as the interim solution, so students could now virtually tour and engage with businesses 24/7 as they would in person during the previous one-day opportunity. This culminating experience increased student access now available from any location both during and outside of the school day.

Second accomplishment:the 3de by Junior Achievement program started in the Central Florida region in the 2019-2020 school year within oak ridge high school, a title i public high school located in orlando, Florida, and osceola high school, a title i public high school located in kissimmee, Florida. 3de re-engineers high school education to be more relevant, experiential, and authentically connected to the complexities of the real world to prepare today's students more fully for the demands of tomorrow's economy. The Junior Achievement principles of entrepreneurship and free enterprise are taught while preparing students for the workplace, and financial literacy and leadership skills are integrated into every core class. The program:- connects education to real-world concepts to heighten students' appreciation for academics and long-term aspirations. - infuses business connectivity into all aspects of learning to deepen students' understanding and sustain engagement. - delivers opportunities to apply academic concepts to enhance students' retention of knowledge and develop skills for success. The 3de program has proven to be an extremely successful model for education where student Achievement occurs every day. The following is our data from the 2021-2022 school year: 22.3% fewer cases of chronic absenteeism. 90% outperformance on state assessments 89% of students scoring at or above state levels of Achievement in core academic subjects, as compared to school peers. Junior Achievement of Central Florida worked with 3de to expand this model to ocoee high school in the 2022-2023 school year with plans underway to open additional 3de by Junior Achievement schools in Florida over the next several years.