ALC-Higher Education Subcommittee

All kinds of things do we have been it's. Okay thank you what I'd like to do first is we are joined today by collegiate farm bureau representatives from the University of Arkansas north Arkansas college Arkansas tech university southern Arkansas university and the university of Arkansas at Monticello the students are in town to participate in a statewide collegiate discussion meet and get a look at our Arkansas farm bureau's policy development process so would you please stand. We're so glad to have you here and I know that you will have a very great time with the farm bureau and their policy discussions it's always an important thing we get a huge book every year from them about their policies so I think it'll be interesting for you to have an opportunity to be part of that process so thank you very much for being here. Okay today we have a full schedule here today and one of the things I think that has always been a focus with me I'm sorry sure representative fight you have some messages were to like to say it started just welcome glad to have you here. One of the things that has been a focus of mine for ever since I've been in the legislature is obviously workforce development education and workforce development are all one thing is kindergarten through career so we're trying to figure out in a lot of ways right now how do we align education with the industry needs on the other end at some point in time every child who is in kindergarten is going to have to have a way of being able to support themselves don't matter whether it's a male or female they're gonna have to have a way to make sure that they have are able to support themselves and that's got to be part of our goal is to make sure we have the things in place to help people be able to move from kindergarten on up to through their career so today we have we're going to talk about some very exciting things we have doctor Aaron finch who's the associate vice chancellor for academic affairs continuous improvement at Little Rock at you a little rock and and basically she's going to be talking about the overview of education to workforce alignment owns a cyber security and they recently received a grant from the office of skills development. Which will help them in that endeavor so Dr fender where are you. When you might bring your friends of an the reason we're meeting here instead of over the big mac is that I really kind of hope that what we have is a a conversation more than just people of getting up and testifying so we had we did that last time and earlier in and it worked out real well because then you can ask questions of these folks and we have some of the things behind them so if you would like to introduce yourselves please and then you will be recognized. So I'm I'm Erin fencer from you a little rock and I'm here with my colleague Lee Watson is the founder and executive director of the forge institute unless you speak a little bit about Ford. Thank you Aaron at four Jinsen two is a local nonprofit doing lots of different programs in cybersecurity supporting state and national defense of course you can't do much without a a good trained work force we have a lot of professional development programs. At a Medicare my name's Steve Coll the chancellor at university of Arkansas casa time. I'm sure I'm Chris Thomas and I'm vice president of university of Arkansas system and planning and development thank you for having us today. All right I'm trying to figure out how to put this in slide show mode. They will have I know there's some technology people around. A perfect okay now I'm not one or eight. Well today we're going to present to you all about an exciting new consortium and that we're that we've been putting together for about nine months now it's seven U. A. system schools UA little rock kind of taking the lead along with you a casa taught you a pine bluff. At university of Arkansas can college Batesville Pulaski tech. Morrilton and hope Texarkana that's everyone and it's been a lot of fun to put this together because we've had a lot of industry support including from the Ford institute convening chief information security officers and cyber security to put together and and it really innovated an integrated curriculum as well as learning spaces into it to work with colleagues across the state to begin to envision what it's gonna look like for Arkansas to be a national leader and cyber workforce education so today we present to you the cyber learning network or cyber learn we hope to be launching we will be launching this this. Coming academic year and. Here we go. I'm a mac user I don't know how to there we go okay so little bit on the history. About eighteen months ago we began talking our our computer science faculty and doctor al Baker's over here he's chair of computer science cybersecurity four gins to to and and ensure partners talking about the need for us to share resources because alone none of us is able to go after big grants or do the things that we wanted to do and server security and cyber technologies to to move the state forward so in December we announced the consortium for cyber innovation and it's a partnership with you a little rock you a pine bluff forges to to an axiom corporation and there are three tenants to this this consortium the first being workforce education. So that we can build up at the cyber workforce here in Arkansas the second research and the third innovation and and entrepreneurism in cyber industries we decided that workforce education was the most urgent piece for us to address so that's where. That one okay. That's that's what that's what we begin this this this consortium so you ought may already know that Arkansas has a tremendous demand like other states in the country for cybersecurity workers and they're currently over three thousand unfilled cybersecurity positions in this state alone. Starting salary in Little Rock is sixty five thousand dollars with an average statewide salary of ninety one thousand dollars those are high paying jobs and with the governor's broadband initiatives these many of these opportunities are work from home so you can have these high high paying positions in rural communities in Arkansas think about the spending power and economic boost when you can have high paying jobs like that throughout the state. So we started with this consortium for cyber innovation and began kicked off of it the cyber learning network and so that's our consortium that we're presenting today with our seven schools throughout the state. And I want to talk a little bit about the model of the consortium it's the first consortium in Arkansas in that we have four year schools into your schools really working together on a shared curriculum and and and and and aligned goals for making written really for the public good making sure that putting Arkansas referred to making sure that we have resilient economies making sure that we have high paying jobs for Arkansas young people and adults who are returning to work or up skilling to to start down a new career pathway. My sharing instructional resources we can we can maximize we we can maximize how we deliver education throughout the state and for example we want to talk a little bit about how much it costs to hire for the Ford institute So cyber security professionals right now are demanding pretty outrageous salaries that's because the supply and demand in this particular field is just completely out of whack. Most of the people we interview for instructor full time instructor positions they want to start a conversation at a quarter of a million dollars a year not including benefits signing bonuses and a whole bunch of other stuff. Obviously we can't do that and I don't think anyone in academia can do it and it's hard for industry to find people to which is why one of the things I'm most excited about if if a particular school was building a cyber program they could build a good program and they could produce a handful of students. That in no way is going to even begin to make a dent into the State needed of three thousand current open positions or the national need of five hundred and sixty four something thousand positions while industry analysts are projecting the job deficit growing to three point four million in the next couple years. So this state wide consortium is interesting because it can enable scale to the production of a trained workforce which makes Arkansas way more attractive to industry who needs not only to hire one two or three but in the case of rating on and and their talk with the governor two years ago at the national governors association they needed to fill twenty five thousand rolls. And the CEO of Raytheon said if you can't talk to me about twenty plus thousand that I don't have time to deal with it. So this is a really exciting network to help solve that. In. Just before we started presenting Steve Coll is talking about that casa taught doing talk about your experience with trying to start a program there sure of the year in everyone in here you've been touched by a cyber crime I'm sure if you haven't that's coming I mean it's just every single day is spent if anyone in here say an example is you have an office three sixty five account. More than likely someone's trying to hack into your account one hundred times today in your account Steve they're already in they're all in their there watching him things like. But but you know it it should you know I'm not the guy and the ten foil hat but it should be really really worry us and we need people to help you protect us from that the past three years at our college we have a third smallest budget in the State of all colleges we at we have a very small budget for four campuses we have a budget of just under eleven million dollars and we run for campuses on that so when we as a small college in Arkansas want to start some type of educational program it's very very difficult we we just we don't have we don't have the ability to generate that kind of funding to start new programs that are needed the good example is we just finished our budgeting process why our budgets are due at the end of this week and about two months ago we actually had a cybersecurity program in our budget because I keep saying you know we have to do this and we we the cyber was still moving along but we we I have a place holder so we had a budget of three hundred thousand dollars I'm not sure that would have been enough but that was what we're going to start our cybersecurity program with you know later on come to find out of the that wasn't going to be enough money and so we just kind of struck that but lo and behold the same time we had the the cyber learn network that we've been putting together for quite some time it was funded with a grant so that allowed me to save three hundred thousand dollars because through that grant I'm going to be able to build a secure training operation center on on my national campus and that's going to allow us to access an instructor from UALR and I now can offer a cyber security program is sorely needed in rural Arkansas whereas before it would have been well that would in virtually impossible but this this is the power of this type of network in the beauty of this I know they'll talk about it later it's it's a scalable project which is which is really good not just for us but for. Every other rule area in Arkansas. Great thanks. So with a little bit more on this model we brought together about twenty twenty five chief information security officers or assist those who came in and helped us design the curriculum and also the learning spaces that are going to be connected throughout the consortium so each campus as well as too high school campuses in Pulaski County part of the academy's of Central Arkansas will have what we're calling a secure training operations center which is modeled on a secure operation center or soccer from the cyber security industry and these will be secure learning spaces where IT record students can simulate you know having cameras and all the security protocol locks we can run training for their and have. Real world project based learning where the cisos throughout the summer will be putting together a number of scenarios that students can run through in our cyber arena which will talk about in a minute I'm that systems also helped us with the curriculum so first we wanted to curriculum statewide that's branded that. You know lawyers throughout the country will recognize the students are going to be graduating with these outcomes and we know we can trust these places so all of the curriculum is aligned with a bat which is the big engineering stem a creditor and yes to the National Institute for standards and technologies and it's one of the first it's it's. It's one of the first cybersecurity curriculums of its kind in that a bet still has not. Sir accredited any cybersecurity programs so will be among the first after we graduate a student from there we're building in pre K. through twenty or graduate school pathways which is really important and to that end this summer you in Little Rock received a grant from the National Security Agency and then support through eighty to bring sixty Arkansas high school teachers and then thirty teachers from around the state in over two summers bill they'll earn a graduate certificate eighteen hours in teaching cybersecurity so we'll have sixteen sixty teachers throughout Arkansas who will be qualified to teach cybersecurity and. At that level have the be qualified for concurrent credit high school concurrent credit so think about that the capacity that we're building there we also have with the office of skills development funding eight scholarships for community college instructors at to go through this teaching academy so really investing in and and building out a work force of educators and cyber security. We have been thinking about this is a learner to employment ecosystem and Dr Tina Morrison to talk a little bit about learning ecosystems but looking at partners like forwards with their boot camps Arkansas center for data sciences with their apprenticeships work based learning awarding prior learning credit for on the job military even self taught learning that that students have and then working to to place learners in an employment system because we do have thanks to the work of affords a really strong network throughout central Arkansas of of chief information security officers we also have a number of stackable certificates which I like and this will be putting these in the high schools they're manageable motivators so that a learner coming in taking our first level certificate and that one's been designed for a learner and any background so somebody who does what American literature like me can can take the certificate since you got your basic courses and in programming since bad secure system servers and interest over security and then stacking up so that students can go out to the work force come back it's good for working learners because they'll have something to show for some college and then with that our industry partners **** to build lots of multiple pathways throughout the the bachelors degree I'll show you this in a minute but it's kind of a build your own adventure so to speak through our curriculum where employers can send their employees to us to learn. Policy as if it did do a little certificate policy or in internet of things so that they can customize their pathway through the major depending on what the learner needs for employment what their employer needs we talked about how this is scalable I'm most excited that we are going to be able to extend these certificates through high school concurrent education and beginning to have some conversations about that that are really exciting and that it's replicable in other disciplines particularly the cyber technologies which is going to be increasingly important with virtual reality automation artificial intelligence data science huge. There we go so this is you've seen these on TV this is kind of what our secure training operation centers or stocks are going to look like and I've talked a bit about a bit about that and Filippov who is our our cybersecurity professor at UA little rock designed the cyber arena a couple of years ago but with grant funding and its cloud based compared to the average computer classroom these spaces are very economical and they can be run on and number of Chromebooks a few monitors and then everything is is in the Google cloud yes. So some of you have met Scott Anderson before the retired out of the Air Force he joined forged about three years ago when Scott was in the Air Force he purchased a simulated cyber training capability there was a five million dollar investment in about two million dollars a year to operate. Now nobody can do that in Arkansas so this cloud based system is very very very efficient and it it can work for any students that have an internet connection. He also by having these these stocks throughout the state they're all going to be is due in able to zoom capabilities so that if Philip puff is delivering a lecture in Little Rock and they're working on the cloud you can have students and in the stocks throughout the state in the same kind of learning environment all having the same experience and we're looking forward to being able to extend the spaces to to community education and professional development throughout small communities in Arkansas. Hi. There we go this is a visual of of our stackable certificates we have two small certificates a proficiency CP one CP to those that together as a technical certificate built into an associate's degree and then you can see that as a learner can continue to to go on do you want to talk a little bit about stackable for the two year perspective yeah it when the two year colleges you know join the discussion in this you know when when you first started thinking about data science and cybersecurity oh everyone you know really thought about being a bachelor of science degrees and a master's degrees and even beyond that but when you talk about the stackable credentials you know we two year colleges you know we and that's what we do I mean we have short term certificates that allow employee or the students to be an employee in a very short period of time if that's what they want to do if they want to stay in and get a certificate of proficiency in and they like it they say Hey I like this and I'm gonna continue on they get another one now they have a technical certificate another another step where they become even more employable and then that they make up their mind they say well this get a hold to your degree they can stay for that if they want or stop out but then a lot of them are we think a lot of them will transfer on to UA little rock or you a PPO wherever they want to go to work on their bachelor's degree or perhaps master's degree but they are very stackable and a lot of times then leave for the entry level job sometimes a CP one CP to attend the president will get them in to some of the entry level jobs and and those jobs pay well and so you know they're all these all stops along the way that are you know that are you know for some students that's what they want and so that's what we want offering through the this whole pathway. Thanks and what we one priority of this is to build up a bachelor's program at UAPB so that will have another kind of work force oriented bachelor's degree program in cybersecurity in the state can be able to serve the Delta. Yes I'd also be worth Committee the advanced technical certificate in this area that has been designed in conjunction with the Cecil so that somebody Ortonville could take the sequence of classes that would make them of interest as an employee to employers without necessarily going to hire bachelor's degree I think that. Workforce. I mentioned earlier that our industry partners insisted that we build a lot of tiny certificates throughout that major suburban here the pathways through the major and little certificates in cybersecurity operations digital forensics data security at cetera and the student can kind of choose how they go into it once they do the first two stackable certificates we'll have the prerequisites to go into almost any of these different bite size certifications and our sister said that we needed to do this to compete with the Ford Institutes boot camps so. He did I heard him say that the thing that I'm excited about this is I think this is one of the most innovative things to happen in higher ed in a long time it's a different way to think about education the book camps that we do Erin and her colleagues signed a credit articulation agreement with us so if you finish our seven week boot camp that correlates to three professional credit hours towards a bachelor's degree if you do our fourteen we the camp you get six credit hours and these are predominantly people that had not considered higher ed before so I think this is going to dramatically opened the doorway for Kansans to consider professional degree when they they didn't think necessarily college was for them. Great so what we talk about most of this now last couple of slides are kind of about how we see this as an ecosystem and I don't I know that doctor Morris could be talking more about that you bet your understanding that that people learn in lots of different ways on the job military self taught. Of the camps lots of micro credentials out their badges Google learning linked in learning a number of of noncredit ways to learn and subcommittee able to go back and work credit at and to bring in working learners and that way I think is really powerful and those studies on the prior learning credit with regards to to retention progression and completion are really compelling so it's good to be able to participate in that space. So here we are in summary will will open it up to any questions that you all might have and we do have start up funding we're working right now on building out details and and getting operations. Nailed down so that we can start accepting students this fall and hopefully have our first graduates from our our first certificate program in the spring and we're looking forward to it to having operationalize the collaboration across the seven schools and look forward to opening up the consortium to other schools in the system and beyond and including high schools through through concurrent credit We talked about the economic development and economic resilience possibilities with scaling this kind of instruction in a high demand area the innovative curriculum work based learning program credit. Industry designed we've we are pretty excited about this project. If I could add you know a lot of times it in the past you know I'm not sure that that all all the colleges in the state cut and your site include all that you know I'm I'm not sure that you know we've always collaborated you know like we could you know whatever various reason then it could be that just it could be geography could be anything technology but you know in the past several years you're starting to see more more collaborative agreements come around and this one I I'm just tell you when we started working with you the two year I say with a two year colleges started working with you L. R. U. P. B. in the forge Institute I mean we met for a long time you know six months not however long it's been we always met by zoom so my fat first time have no now nine months for some or seen them in person because he's always been on soon but it. Sorry about. But a. But to let you know that it has just been a wonderful experience there's never been this whole process there's never been all what we can't do that or we can't do this it's always been and will will do that your site you AR we need an administrative agent for this in two LR and they said we'll do this now let's all work together on an agreement we put the agreement together into this whole process is just been it's been actually enjoyable that we put this together and I think because of the other day we saw the you know we are I was on price maybe and we just we we really saw what was going to happen and and and I it's happening thanks so as the yeah credit to the office of skills development because through some of their funding that's why this is going to start when it's going to start and so that is much appreciated yes very much appreciated and we are actively pursuing other grant opportunities to to be able to scale and. Continue to grow this. So I think this is a really hang up I'm excited by I was excited when I heard about it when you all talked about it first but it's such a great it is a and you mention it it's a great model and and we're talking now about kindergarten through career so so many times what happens is that person who may not have made good choices when they were eighteen thanks that the rest of their life is gone and that's just not true I mean and so I think this is the beginning of a showing how we can put things together to give everybody along the line along the pathway an opportunity for a better future they may not realize eighteen that they might be able to do this when they're twenty five or thirty five but we but I think what you're doing is providing that kind of an opportunity for everybody to get on board if that's what they want with a variety of the certificates and programs and all that so I'm I'm really excited about that I know we have a couple questions representative makes. Thank you after so as the chair of the technology committee I am very excited about this of course work with Lee a couple years ago to help make some of public private partnerships in this arena possible so I'm very encouraged to to see this saw that two questions that I have first one looks like this is a you a system initiative has there been any discussion with our other universities so I'm I'm thinking of in particular you see a has a cyber security range it seems like there would be a great partnership opportunity there so have you all explorers have been discussions with other university systems besides just the you of a systems in this not yet there is interest in having a conversation later this week with a two year college outside of you a system really our seven schools kind of came together organically it was just reaching out and knowing people and I'll. Chris Thompson said call Steve Coll I know he's interested in this so. we've got we do because this is going to be a very large model of course sharing with student records and tuition and scholarships we have a lot of complex business processes to figure out I think. With this next year as we as we finesse and fine tune those processes will will be ready to open up to other schools and look forward to doing so actually what what which which leads me into my second point. My second question I've actually was approached last week by one of the major software vendors that handles a lot of the cloud level solutions those major national player and they pointed me to a Texas law that was passed last year that part of it that I'm looking at seriously for trying to introduce here in Arkansas next session. And one of the aspects of that cybersecurity law was partnerships with universities across the state to help the state respond to cyber threats and so it looks like there's a great opportunity looks like already laying the groundwork should we get legislation like that in order to do so I guess is maybe more of a comment or I would love to visit with you all afterwards to explore how we might can further partner with our universities as a resource for cybersecurity threats that we face as a state this is a state we. Like you mentioned hundreds of thousands of cyber attacks today against our systems and I'm also thinking about my local county library. How do they have the resources where they have the resource how do they handle cybersecurity incidents of right now we don't have good answers for that and so those are some of the things I'm trying to. Yeah thank you representative makes there's a lot of work to do in this basin I would love to talk about this and and put some ideas together excellent thank you your representative makes also at that level you said you know about the the library but. You know all of us either have a small business or you know someone in your small town that has one one cyber security attack on their bank account and that's it yeah they're they're out of business because one once they get into their checking account and they either through escrow or any other means they get their money out of the United States they cannot get it back on and in cyber insurance does not cover the money loss of covers other things but it doesn't cover that and so it is dangerous for small mom and pops you can't afford this and so we right and we have to get it right a hundred percent of the time we only have to get right once that's right that's right and I'll make one more comment about this just because you I'm I'm I live in rural Arkansas I live in a town of of seven hundred and seven like most of us do in this room I think but I live in a very small town no stop lights and I do know that we are we want every student to be able to access any type of education they want and while we all would love for them to go to you L. R. we do we're good friends we were neighbors we want them to go to UAPB we want them to have a university experience but we also know a lot of students are going to do that a lot of students are place down or that's just where they want to be and so that's where they want to learn answer to this they can get the best of both worlds they can still be a cyber security learner but stay at home and then later on they if they really have a keen interest they can move on to to Little Rock wherever so we can branch out and scale this state wide to reach all the rule areas since most of our state is rule right well I will say in another follow up is. In order to have those professionals in our communities they really need to come from our communities because you're gonna be hard pressed to get someone who wants to make two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year to go to rural Arkansas verses if we can train up our own in those communities who want to stay in those communities were way better off. Representative makes I want to agree with you on that but also let you all know that over COVID cyber attacks went through the roof. And so I this state employers started hiring our Kansans allowing them to work in the state with Silicon Valley wages and that's hurting Arkansas employers so this pipeline is going to help offset that west coast threat if you will and and provide the workforce it's affordable to employers here. Thank you manager Senator Johnson. Thank you madam chair of. And I'll do this the whole panel but I'll start with the. Dr fender Representative makes actually said in a meeting once with you remember this state the the gentleman with the building security the cyber security thing on buildings and they brought up things it never crossed my mind such as we're sitting here in a relatively comfortable room but they've be nothing to stop a cyber attack from going into the controls for the HVAC systems refrigeration heat it cetera that keep a building going to I hope your program tell me that it it covers that kind of thing to do not just finance and and the things we typically think of it in being hacked or what it does approachability work this computer because I'm a humanities person and not not computer but one of our certificates is the internet of things so all the things that controlled. Our thanks yeah and then doctor Philip puff his research is protecting the energy grid and he's done a lot of collaborative research with univers Arkansas Fayetteville on that so it's definitely a part of of our curriculum and and the entity of the program great thank you quick follow up if I could manage here And this is not a I'm not can be contentious on but you know this is rural nature that you mention is making us perhaps competitively disadvantaged there's a flip side to that I and I for one term this speech of mine please bear with me I'll be I'll be quick I have a daughter who's a techie she told me she can work anywhere in the world she can have a broadband connection. And I've always said that we sell Arkansas is a place where you can have a nice big house for a relatively small amount of money where she couldn't even afford a house in Silicon Valley even as small and she has been the Denver area but kind of in between but the fact is there a lot of people that like to hunt fish camp flow do all the things that we can do in Arkansas and have little space a rural area good school districts but want to work in this field is the thought been given to taking that advantage which for some I know they could care less about doing those things but those that would like to do that but also practice in this profession maybe of how you can market that not just to and again this goes along the whole tech careers but specifically in this because if you're. Allen St always talk about how this rule Perry County and you could do this job then you'd be much protected from maybe some of the negative things that could happen when they go into a taxes can you just address that briefly. You senator Johnson thank you as a native our cans and from Hebrew springs to enjoy the outdoors if you have a a decent internet connection you can do a lot of interesting stuff this everybody know what Leslie Arkansas is. So Ford's got a grant through the delta regional authority in RCA to do cyber training and Leslie Arkansas. And for other rural counties. They're building they're taking a classroom that's in the local school I think it's a high school up there and it's not only going to be a training lab but it's also gonna be a place to work once they finish. I think there's a lot of really great stuff that we can do when we think about assets in our communities whether it's an extra classroom it's a library at the chamber of commerce if we make it easy for people to get on the internet and three consortiums like this we train them there's an endless amount of opportunity economically form. Certainly good news I'm sorry I'll just follow up on that is as well and say that I think that your point and the point representative makes is critical here and that this we've heard us talk about a pipeline in those of you that know me know that I'm formally censuring rule Arkansas and I grew up in Patmos it's probably about three folks here but now we're payments Arkansas is seventy seven people co but none the less my point is is that pipeline is working to waste of this consortium it works not only to meet the demand of students often student opportunity irrespective of where they are in Arkansas but it also meets the demand of business and industry irrespective of where it is in Arkansas your county library is the perfect example as I travel state on behalf the University of Arkansas System at our community colleges that have become the meeting place for so much of our business and industry I hear time and time again our local banks a local or manufacturing facilities even the University of Arkansas System just recently initiate a C. so position there because they have critical needs in this area and if we can train our own you're exactly I used to say that all the time when I was a chance for the community college in southwest Arkansas the easiest employee the easiest high skilled employee that I can recruit is one that was raised in the area and we tend to maintain them longer so I think that's the beauty of this design and is a member as a vice president of the system office I will say to the question about the continued development including other system schools are Alice System schools I can commit to you on on at least on my part that is my role in this these these projects these consortiums happen in steps and this this actually came from a very organic conversation regarding the shortly after Senator English had visited with me and we actually receive federal funding at the system level for the first time to create for you a system workforce response and training system which is an ongoing development that included a lot of the same system why. I'd be and insert into these but as soon as we get good or we get further down the road to meeting business and industry needs and the training needs I think it is an actual model to impact all of Arkansas for multiple institutions. I also bought. Part of the question for you don't you you actually could come up to the table will quickly. If you have a microphone. Okay and my number one my first we do want people are watching and streaming and I kind of yes yes identified out here these. And your yeah but one but. The Or the Department computer science at UA little rock and I was thinking first of all I'm not from Arkansas so my perspective is a little bit from the outside what are opportunities for attracting people to work in Arkansas from outside the state and I think that we've done some really exciting things that are getting national attention the Arkansas department of education now requiring a credit in computer science the graduate from high school for all freshmen starting in. Follow twenty three I believe it's when that starts next year at any rate that's getting national visibility the national cybersecurity teaching academy that Aaron mentioned earlier is trading teachers in other states through funding for the National Security Agency we are establishing visibility outside the State of Arkansas that I think it's going to help us attract. People to be working here thank you thank you panel thank you madam chair thank you I will say one of the most gratifying things of this consortium has been the sense of community building I'm also from Arkansas native our cans and I grew up in Batesville and so it's fun to get to work with with my small town on this and not just be in Little Rock and it has made this state you all heard Arkansas is like a small town and it does feel that way right now. Okay okay let me see representative Bragg you have a question. Thank you madam chair of concerning your curriculum in a in a previous discussion on this it was kind of pointed out that there are two aspects to cybersecurity one's defensive or you're trying to prevent hacking on one's offenses so does your curriculum cover both of those areas or is it you know better than I do. Representative bracket does in order to defend against an adversary you have to understand how the adversaries attacking so let it be clear we're not teaching people how to hack. But we are teaching them how the adversary is attacking such that they can build better defenses okay follows okay to learn record representative makes discuss about small business. it is in the works or is it possible to have someone of a co op among small businesses that could share maybe one individual of to to help service salmon is that that I understand that might be in the works or something being looked at. we're having white boarding discussions with lots of entities right now to see what kind of approaches could be put together to help municipalities small utilities small businesses but it's in the early stages I would love to follow up with you on that okay thank you. And we submitted some grants to with one recently with the small business administration so yes we definitely are looking at at that and different ways to. Support community professional development and representative right if you if you look at the data and and and you look at the studies and read the tea leaves and all those things. You know there's there's going to be the a very soon. Mail certainly in our lifetimes of certainly in the next few years where you'll either see a consortium where small businesses that couldn't afford their own C. so they they could actually share in another because going forward all of our corporations our small businesses mom and pop to whoever that whoever they are they're going to need some type of cyber security awareness training or someone that they can hire contract with that can help them because they have no idea how to keep the bad. And and they'll need to know that and I think that's just going to be a cost of doing business soon. Okay let's see Senator Elliot you have a question. Thank you madam chair And yeah I know we're Pappas's. Willisville is small and small enough we are neighbors I guess We I'm going to need to just have a conversation with with you and everybody down there that's going to be really important to legislation we passed that is is called our closest technology and it was is really aimed at creating jobs and economic development especially in our rural areas but all of this state and this just seems like something that would be a good fit for what we are trying to do because I am curious about I think you answered my question but was really curious about are not trying to do this if we attract some big company great but part of what we're looking at is growing where we are and keeping people in of where they are so that maybe seven hundred and seven and at seventy seven and one fifty two and will this film won't be our ultimate numbers so I just wanted to say just contact you about that but but I really do appreciate the fact that you are are looking at small businesses and the possibility of there being protected because if they can't have that protection they can't remain role Arkansas. And. About the teachers that we're going to be training this question I have are they will you target bees intentional about where you're targeting folks again the rule areas for example and not make a y'all come type thing. That's an interesting question Senator Elliott and I was sitting. Right now I think it has kind of been a everybody come. Just sign up we still got some slots available and probably need to be more intentional with that and develop a plan and see what representation we have right now from around the state and where there might be some areas that we need to go after so thank you for that suggestion I I do think it's it is an excellent observation I I might want to point out we just got the grant in March so we're moving pretty quickly but I think getting smarter more strategic about where we do our messaging about the opportunities for teachers is going to be important so I do also think it's a great suggestion yeah I I hope we will do that because we we I I keep thinking that. We're absolutely going to learn I don't mean you guys at at some at this point that just open the door and say anybody come who wants to come and we tend to get the same people the same regions of the state and then we're surprised we continue to have the they aren't that disparity that we have so what we would do that and might might last a question has to do with. As you are looking at hiring these folks in that are different areas. If you could. If you could think of any other system outside of the education system that. Needs to be connected to. And eco system that would help us to grow rule Arkansas with what you're doing because if we just do what you're doing and the rest of the Legislative volleys and not. Responding to the needs in the rural areas. What other system one of the group what other committee should be looking at something it should be considering so that when we invest all of this and you do all your work that is done something to make sure people have quality of life issues address so they can stay there because we do the things we've been doing things for years trying to keep teachers somewhere by coming up with the next Super Bowl it and it just doesn't work and we are not addressing all of life so for part of life in Arkansas and beyond what you doing do you think will be necessary for this to be man you want you who wants this but at the center that that is you know I am we have the same conversation last week I I happen to serve on the the Arkansas state chamber of commerce board and we had a retreat last week and that is something that actually came up it with myself Southwest Arkansas and had a young lady from south central Arkansas over you know closer to to the southeast and we had a come in open session where we just kind of shared and and we talked about you know some of you know the you know. Some of the intentional is amended to be intentional about certain areas of the state you know obviously there's a lot of parts of our state that are growing for good reason but there are some I know southwest south central southeast East essentially the fourth congressional district actually that you know that there needs to be more intentional thought about infrastructure and employment and I think that that's I don't know what group that is I don't I mean I don't know but I think some of these efforts from an educational standpoint we can reach you we can go to those places but that's a hard question the critical aspect of that conversation to have and many of us all of us in this room of served on those local economic development board at the county level and sometimes now even at the regional level I think goes to also one of the architecture points of this partnership as well as the U. a system statewide partnership that is about a year and its development now is it has built in to its foundation collaboration not just a mom all the you a system schools is represented meets pointed out earlier but also critical business and industry the beautiful thing about cybersecurity and one doctor Senator had this discussion with me initially I knew that it was one of those issues that touches every aspect of Arkansas Life every community every business that operates so when we bring those folks to the table from around the state in business and industry to have a discussion about the skills that they need and the good and the curriculum design they also have a discussion about those topics that you just said Hey wait a minute could we also is is business and industry can we collaborate or and workforce needs or workforce development why can't we attract to will Arkansas with high quality life in a low cost of living if we have the trained work force and we have the in. For structure in place to connect those employees we can build an economy in awe are for the rest of the country Arkansas rule period right and we can build this economy across the entire state I have some of the group will Arkansas I don't I remember initially when the thank you for the internet of things first came out what it was was devastating to my community so I watch mom pops closed down but now to education and technology infrastructure I called the boomerang effect now we can bring those things back to Arkansas because we have the great schools we have a little we have the low cost when we have the quality of life we have the connectivity on some of the fastest broadband internet the country we can connect everybody to it and we can build an industry here with the very thing that initially twenty years ago call a retiree can most of our rural communities. Thank you and thanks jim. Senator garner. They measure how many. Do you think you'll have in your first year two years on average. We've built out our business model on a hundred students in the first two years some have thinks it's going to be more and I hope it's not because I do I do I hope it's more but we should be with a hundred and It's it's going to be a wild ride to find instructors who are qualified and and make sure that we're providing that we need to prop up the consortium Committee ministration and how many do you have a do towards current program to the university Arkansas I'm a graduate certificates or degrees in a given currently. How many. Students or I'm sorry how many of I mean I've looked as did quick Google search it looks like you have a offers different graduate skill programs they offer degrees and I know some other college a duty you have estimate rough of how many we actually produce in Arkansas currently. I don't leave my do you I don't have an exact number but it's very very very small. And at some schools have a higher percentage of foreign nationals which makes it harder to employ them once I graduate. How to get to the my point I think I mean I've said enough committee meetings and I know whenever you have millions of dollars of state money being offered at colleges get excited and they do a great job of explaining that to us but then the materializing years later I just don't see it and rule Arkansas like you spoke of them we have this IT pushy was forced to save self Arkansas Justice even to realize so that's my question is we currently seems like the man isn't that high there was more people would be going these current schools hello hope this program succeed it seems like it was something we need to pay attention to to make sure we get the return on the investment that the people of Arkansas put into a absolutely I'm I don't have it in the slide deck but we have. Do you remember what the. It is thirteen months to pay back to the state the investment from the west to grant so we've we've run all those numbers I'm sorry I don't have it in the slide deck but we are just getting off the ground so I have here right now we're looking at different logos and this is absolutely brand new we haven't even gotten the stairs to the certificate the first certificate in the consortium is going to the US system board of trustees and may so it doesn't even exist yet in these in these small communities and you a little rock's bachelors program in cyber security is also brand new and we don't have a graduate yet this year was the first year we've offered it so we would definitely you know centimetric me stickers were in that program we now have forty majors forty major cybersecurity and in this last fall was our first cohort so I think we're moving pretty well and center and and I'll point out that and I'm to speak from my college I don't I never speak for anyone else's but. You know and and while this is a cost sharing. Arrangement that we have this was modeled a loosely after the Arkansas rule nursing education consortium that is what this is modeled after as far as how we're sharing costs and things like that. And the Arkansas trucking academy which is for to your schools you know we have my college has the third smallest budget the state and I and I mentioned earlier every every dime that we have or get is precious to me and and all of my my employees I mean it's we go through a year of budgeting and we quibble over the it gets out of toilet paper because you know you just trying to cut expenses incurred expenses but just to let you and sometimes when you offer these programs I mean even your best research then you know trying to reach out to get the students and you know sometimes it is a leap of faith you know to go out and and attract the students you know the demand is there but you know does it translate into I totally agree with you but the and I know from other colleges in this consortium you know that the state dollars are very precious to us and and I'm I'm telling you that because they're not of something that we would waste This section are and we just we can't quite well I hope is exceed I'm just I mean you mentioned nursing I know that we've seen in self Arkansas that nurses to come back if we provided thing trucking the same thing I just seen the push from this administration particularly for I. T. the last seven years and I have not seen results in my district of that now moving out of my district and plaster county to northwest Arkansas or moving out of state I have seen that so I guess I'm just. Cautiously optimistic about the prospect of business thank you should be something we monitor the seat is correct our allies absolutely agree one thing though with with the expansion of broadband we have an opportunity that we've never had before so hopefully it will this experiment will be watching carefully and making alterations as we need to. Thank you. Thank you so much for this presentation is in lightning and it's exciting to me it's as we begin to think about new models and where those demands are and where the future looks like for Arkansas in so hopefully with this kind of a model we're not gonna leave anybody behind everybody's gonna have an opportunity to be involved at some point what however they choose to do that so I really appreciate you all being here and we will have you back in thank you they lost thank you. Okay next we're going to visit with Dr mark Bailey who is the assistant professor department of chemistry and director of the strive program. It had a. I actually had no idea what the strive program was until I saw all of a sudden commissioner's memo that they were looking for teachers to be part of this program and so I add it up calling up doctor Bailey to find out a little bit more about this program and I thought well it's one of those things we have programs out there nobody knows about him and this is a really important one for recruiting teachers and into industry so of doctor Bailey if you would identify yourself in your gas made at do that you'll be recognized. Thank you so much for inviting us Senator English my name is mark Bailey an assistant professor at the university of Arkansas little rock in chemistry and I also in the Director of the strike program and like my guest introduce themselves hi my name is what the major I teach physics and physical science at lakeside high school in hot springs. Hello my name's Jane Hurley and we Central Arkansas Water and I wanted to business partners for strive. So to summarize the the program in just a couple sentences one middle and high school students are understand classes and ask their teachers what I need to learn this we want them to be able to say well you know what this business right down the street you might end up being a you know a plumber or welder there a machinist or your computer science technician whatever cyber security whatever that ends up being you're gonna need the skills that you're learning your high school middle school classes in order to be successful in obtaining a job there and so the striper Graham takes middle and high school stem teachers from around the state and we provide opportunities and partnerships with local businesses for them to complete a four week internship in that business and then that internship is surrounded by some professional development for them to maximize their appreciation and understanding of the skills that are needed in those jobs and how what they're teaching in middle and high school a line with what businesses need for future employees as a foundational set of skills this feature is that develop curriculum over the summer they then bring that back to the classrooms. And then help their students become more aware of the jobs that exist in their communities and to become more prepared for those jobs this is funded by the Arkansas state legislature and so we thank you very much for the funding they will spend the next fifteen or twenty minutes kind of describing the program and then we have some time set aside for questions towards the end but I don't want anyone interrupt them not sure if that's how procedure works here. Sorry our goals mention or really we worked with the stem teachers we do not directly interact with the students we do not train students but we'll for businesses that want more awareness in their communities of what it is they do. So our goals are to increase student awareness of the jobs utilize stem skills in those concepts that are being taught in the classrooms the teachers and say well the reason you need to learn this is and can explain that their experience over the summer working with the business shows that the skills that they're learning in this classes are really valuable and in doing so what we have to increase the likelihood the students will be able to apply for and be successful in the jobs in the community that utilize stem skills. I have some of the kind of high level takeaways why would a teacher want to participate in this a lot of our teachers go directly from being a student to teaching students and don't have very much time in the workplace so this can give them some new inspiration I can give examples to say you know what is it that happens in your local community I haven't been able to work in this field before but now I know because I've seen it firsthand what these businesses need and what they do and the breadth of jobs exist in every single business around us small businesses have to have all kinds of skill sets to function and so being embedded within a business for weeks really helps those teachers see what those different opportunities are we pay teachers we value their time and we want to make sure that they feel valued and appreciated and so the total commitment from teachers is five weeks one week of that is professional development in four weeks as the internship so they received a six thousand dollar state and. For their participation in the program we also provide small grants for them to buy classroom equipment to help them increase the capability there student so whatever that curriculum is a design of the summer meeting they need to robotics kit maybe they need graphing calculators maybe they need laboratory equipment and so strive program will help fund purchase of equipment for their classrooms we also build a community is one the biggest feedbacks we hear from teachers is I feel like I now have people around the state that I can reach out to when I have questions and that's both business partners and teachers as well support at the hi red level with me and my team And the stride mentors so Whitney will talk about in a minute but we have a tiered system now where we have both participants of the program teachers to participate for the first time and then some of our outstanding teachers will come back for a second or third or fourth year and help mentor those other teachers because they know what it takes and the best institutional knowledge or the teachers like Whitney who have gone through it themselves and really shown that leadership capability for the business is not only about helping out schools race about developing the future workforce and pipeline so many businesses are thankful afterwards and say we really appreciate the ability to go into the classroom afterwards because now we have a teacher. That can connect us directly with the classroom and so with any of the leaves had business partners from Reynolds come into her classroom in hot springs and be able to directly interact with future workforce it also allows for a fresh set of eyes to come into the business and give a perspective that you would otherwise had we have a teacher that teaches It's a sort of Lindsey's. Yeah so especially as our economic but she teaches kind of like physical therapy that type of thing in a career tech ed course up in Jonesborough and she worked with high troll who does conveyor belt manufacturing up in Jonesborough. And at the end of our for replacement there should give a lot of feedback on ways they can improve their business so having as a separate set of eyes come in and give them input in a way that they hadn't expected is what we hear very frequently we also have some businesses that have a backburner project post also in Jonesborough who does serial you know production manufacturing I've had some teachers do projects on how is it we can increase the strength of the flakes and honey bunches of oats which something very important project very substantial outcomes but the teachers helped over four weeks to teachers work on a project to look at humidity big time temperature different cooking because the operation procedures and ended up helping increase the strength by this five or ten percent of those flakes to make less of that crumble at the bottom that no one wants. Our summary of numbers I've been I was hired to help run this program is run this program in two thousand eighteen at the end of the summer and so these are the numbers since I've joined the program in two thousand nineteen we had seven business partners twelve teachers and I estimated about a hundred forty teachers per year. Which I think is a state cap and so it's about seventeen hundred students for the first year COVID then hit we still were able to run the program twenty twenty was more of a virtual interview but we had a lot of professional development still had been interacting with more I see more business partners through interviews and a lot of training on what to ask and how to bring it back to the classroom in twenty twenty one we are pretty flat on numbers but this year I'm very excited to see we've had almost fifty applicants to the program and we're working very diligently with a team including some undergraduate students at UA little rock. And so we have confirmed twenty four placements for teachers nineteen business partners which will impact approximately six thousand students if we are successful in the other ones will probably have closer about thirty five teachers this year I'm hopeful the number of business partners here if you look at the she for those that of you at the table there's a single she with a whole bunch of names on one side and the other and so that exhilaration you kinda shows who are business willing business partners are and for the year twenty twenty two there are stars next to the active participants which we means we have confirmed teacher placements there. So we do have more than nineteen business partners but the challenge is how to engage teachers within each community to apply to participate program without a business partner to their or if we have a teacher apply how to make sure we have a business partner that is in the same community because we don't want teachers driving across the state we want businesses to participate with teachers from their own community and so that has been a at large part of developing this program is making sure that we have teachers and businesses within the same communities. And across the state and on the backside of one of those of the pieces of paper you have and I believe I have an apple pull up here. we have shown currently where we have business partners in the business partners are in purple shaded on this map and the yellow dots are teachers and you'll notice that there are some teachers that work in Arkansas the live just outside in the south west corner Texarkana actually I think I might affect those the yellows a businesses outside of Arkansas the purple our teachers inside. And so we have it's always a moving map kind of whack a mole trying to figure out where we want to try to recruit more teachers what we need to recruit more businesses southeastern Arkansas is really were we need to focus our efforts next year southern southeastern because that's an area where we have yet to make a lot of partnerships we had some last year and some of those have decided not to participate this year and so we're trying to grow as much as we possibly can as the discussion was earlier we want to really make sure that we're not only focusing on the urban areas in Arkansas and so we're trying to move that along as as well as we can and that's one of our goals long term of the program. I'd like to have injured a little bit she is one of our business partners are strongest and oldest business partner from Central Arkansas Water not personally the oldest. All right so we're really excited to be a part of this program to still be Central Arkansas waters fifth year and and we believe that when you reach a teacher you reach a community and we think this partnership we strive is very important the water sector water wastewater stormwater is state to state every community needs water every community needs wastewater treatment and every community needs to needs to manage that water we love having the teachers come on site learning what we do how we do it in I never get tired of hearing people say oh my goodness I had no idea that's what it took to bring water you know to our homes schools churches businesses We have. We try to instill at an overview when we have teachers with is that they don't just learn about their area of focus it they get a kind of a broad high level understanding of what it takes to to deliver to treat and deliver water And we also benefit greatly from the input just like mark was talking about for the input that they have from the fresh eyes that they have they've helped with research projects out in the watershed let's see yeah you can see some of those pictures where they're taking measurements and collecting samples and with the the net that they'd been collected macro vertebrates to do inventory of the Maumelle river and then this year we're actually gonna have someone work directly with our lab which is certified through the Department of health and the department of environmental quality and they're going to take on a very important project but one that we have it and the chest to give too much time to in terms of that affect the chemical hygiene plan and that when we we got to interview at the different people and said okay this is what we need this is our area of need is this something that you're interested in and so the way that Marquez program set up and teachers never placed in a in the area where they're like today you know I really hate being outside now I get a kick net this stream but you know go in in what you know what the program is what each companies offering and we really like that they work so hard to match each position with the with the knowledge and skills and what the teachers aptitude is with are so that is one of the things that makes it really successful to us C.. We just strongly support this I've talked about this to my other colleagues in the water at their water utilities around the state and I hope they will be encouraging more more water utilities water and wastewater to join this strive program because we do cover those southern eastern western and central areas as well. Thank you Jane and these imagers are at the end of every year we have the teachers president out in January so they have a semester to implement that curriculum interact to their students collecting data on how it influence or students and then they present our open house where we invite you business partners you are welcome to come as well as potential new teachers and everyone has participated and so this was one of our teachers a couple years ago that were to Central Arkansas Water into Branson so would you just describe your. Also. Okay so I have been a teacher in the state of Arkansas for about eight years now and I've probably been over five hundred hours of professional development so not only state required but school required and then also my own personal growth and about three years ago I was looking for a summer opportunity so that I could be home with my kids but also be paid and I simply typed into the Google search bar paid P. D. Arkansas and strive pop pops up and the website was you know just bare minimum I don't really see a whole lot of stuff I saw the application process maybe it was a scam maybe not so I decided to apply. lo and behold. Yeah I got paired with mark and it is been a life changing experience ever since who knew that three little words like paid PD Arkansas could change my teaching career forever because I had no idea what I did not realize was that need that I had as a young teacher to do something outside of the classroom was gonna be for a field that summer so I got a taste of what it was like to not be standing on my feet teaching you know thirty kids seven periods a day so on and so forth and I've got to engage with other adults and other businesses and make connections which is to me the most meaningful part of it I also got to see from a perspective of a business what an employable adult looks like and what it did in my classroom was instead of going back that first year and teaching the content I flipped it and so I taught a skills based approach using the content and I saw my learning excel so one of the things I'm big into is data science I love it and so I think that if I implement something in my classroom I want to see that growth and so I do tons of formative and summative assessments throughout to make sure that kids are continually learning because that's the ultimate goal and what I saw was a true increase in that data because of my participation and strive what I also saw was because I was making so many connections with these businesses I was more confident and contacting a business and saying Hey do you want to sponsor project or do you wanna come in my classroom and discuss your business and may be introduced a project I will say that Justin this past last year since January I've had fifteen different business partners or people either virtually meet with my students or in person meet with my students the most look are the most. Someone was lows so I had them partner with me to do a roller coaster project as we were studying energy enforces they came in and talked about how they inventory material and what type of insulation what is and about how they got their job and just so on and so forth so we're introducing those careers in the community in hopes that students will see hate what I'm learning in the classroom really does have a real world application and not just because my teacher said so and then they can use those skills and then stay in the community so I believe it builds kind of this network of not only teachers but teachers and businesses and students well one of the things that I find most meaningful first drive is that it creates not working real world application of professional growth all into one not no longer are the days where I sat in a six hour PD and walk away with hardly anything or feel this feel like I unless the field and when I first stepped into the room I'm walking away with meaningful PD with a classroom full of materials that I need with a network of teachers that I can look back on balance ideas off of and then ultimately with a business partner that I can call upon I'm more apt to reach out to even businesses I've never been to industries that I just have questions about and that's one of the first things that I say Hey I'm a strive mental work are you interested in a business partnership well if not then are you interested in you know just coming to my classroom and talking to my kids so it really does it creates this overlap between teachers communities and industry that I think was really needed in my classroom. Thank you any. I love it I love it you can see that waiting is one of our standouts and there's a reason that I have brought her back year after year no matter what you do in her life she would be amazing and so we're very fortunate to have her as an educator I'll just leave kind of with this slide that we're here not just to tell you about what we're doing but also to ask for help you seen a map of where we do have a substantial number of partners but there's a lot of the state that we really would like to serve and we have not yet been able to build out a strong the network exceptions in south and Southeast Arkansas particular northeast Arkansas in the corner we're we're running a little short and so while we are growing our numbers were tripling our numbers from last year we want this to be a representative of the entire state and I think we need to have a conversation with doctor friends or to figure out how we can have maybe strive alumni teachers that have completed the program eighty feet into the Secretary initiative because I think that some of our teachers are the most ambitious in the State. I think your comments about that how it how is it has helped you not just just the students but is help you to be able to think about on a broader scale I think that's what lot lot of times but most of us need to do is figure out how we look at the bigger world and then the bubble we live at and that saw of representative Meeks thank you madam chair. So as most of my colleagues know this but I operate a small portable planetarium in space science museum but I take schools around the state trying to get kids interested in and Stellman so I'm really gonna be interested in the in the next presentation but one of the feedback that I often get from students and that's one of reasons why I love this program. Is there familiar especially in the rural areas they're familiar with the everyday jobs they see being a policeman a doctor a farmer. But what I found is mostly is kids have never considered becoming a technologist a scientist and engineer simply because no one has ever put it on the radar and explain that that's a possibility to all and once they learned that Hey I could become an engineer or scientist. Changes their world view because they know these opportunities existed so I love this this program for for that reason the one question that I do have is is gonna be on the business side the teachers that are going to the business and you said that state provides against the six thousand dollar stipend does the business provide any kind of pay or package to the teacher during that internship or what is the the business's responsibility because they're they're simply getting an employee for four weeks correct so does the business have to. What what kind of skin does a business have forgetting that employee for those four weeks so the short answer short term answers nothing they provide a mentor and they need to provide a opportunity and so the hardest thing to do as the director of drug program is get businesses entrusted because it sounds like free employee for four weeks that's great but how effective is an employee if you consider for weeks on the job right mostly job training or get someone to speak to them in the so it really has to be a conversation more deeper about different perspective are there little tidbits they can work on or are there opportunities so Meeks lumber and write out our two of our new partners this year where they can work with the design team they actually go out to the job site they then come back in the you know I can think about how other piece it together on the measurement all the supply chain logistics always are components right and so those skills that the teacher learns can then help from an outside perspective say have you thought about you know these different pieces that someone else you might not have time to sit back and think about we really want the teachers to leave with an idea of all the different jobs that are in the community that go into this and so Central Arkansas Water another one of these for teachers get involved in tons of different things they see all the different jobs that they never would have thought of were also starting to partner with construction management at the suggestion Senator English I've reached out to doctor Bray again rich Arkansas little who runs a construction management so so many jobs your community and you need those skills from your high school math and physics classes in order to really understand what you're doing so really trying to get that I don't have someone in my house it does this I have seen on TV you if you're good at you need to be good at math and then you do these for jobs that's not how the world works and we also don't just focus on light higher level paying jobs we want to introduce them to Austin careers whether that be light at Reynolds manufacturing where they make a rentals route through multi multinational right and so the operators positions my husband is an operator of Reynolds and so I've had him in my classroom makes. Plaintiff students because not all students are headed towards a four year degree path and so I want to make sure I'm reaching the needs of all and my all of my students in my class not just I want her going to be an engineer going to be a scientist and making sure that they understand what job opportunities they have once they leave high school excellent excellent thank you and could I add on to your other question about what do the business is what's going to be having a game my dream is to build this program to the point where it is not sustainable state funds which I think we might be getting closer the next year to and in that case what were looking at is if we can guarantee yeah if we have the background of this is how valuable assist our business partners then we can say well you know it's the fifty fifty cost sharing. Excellent thank you. Senator Elliot. This may be as obvious obvious to me yes Is appearing in my head but do you have any thoughts about or any kind of personal knowledge of why more schools are more teachers are not participating and I can help with answering this and we for the past few years have done a lot of discussing even maybe a little bit of research about wine and it all boils down to so I sent out a Google form I'm also the A. S. TA southwest director for the Arkansas science teachers association and a lot of teachers only one about two weeks of PD and they wanted to be a six hour session because they spend so much time during the school year working and they don't want to make a five week commitment during their eight weeks of what we would call break time refresh time rejuvenate time and so that is one of a kind of thing we're running into we also were having an issue where the program was starting in June and so it was like as soon as school got out bam your back into it you know and we are trying out something new this year and decided to start it in the first of July and it lead up to the beginning of school I don't know if that we're some extra money kind of made teachers apply more this year or a lot of our promotions that we did this year versus other years before I also think that it boils down to and the idea of a teacher working in an industry so if I had didn't know someone in industry or had never been around someone when I hear that I'm going to be an industry I think it's going to be hot it's going to be nasty I'm gonna have to follow some around and do a job that I don't really want to do so until they know more about it and know the experiences that are offered it on all levels and the enticement or turn off in the beginning is what we're running into. Yeah and it's a little bit of the chicken and the egg to is it depends on if you are. living magnolia and you go to our website which is now very full and it is very beautiful she is months after I started the program talking about that but then there's a map there a Google map that has all the dots of our different business partners and if you don't see one in your community thank you might not apply even though I haven't bowled underneath please apply even if there's not a business that we will then work with you to find someone so that it's been part of our challenges so it's kind of it's a snowball effect we think that now that we're going to our partner list you see in the patient for any of it is substantially larger it's as large as it has been the last three years combined so we're hoping that. That continuous growth is going to give what is a very good place where we. Have more teachers and businesses that we know what to do with and will have to figure out that is we got this almost sounds like to all local chamber of commerce thing because that's where I meeting you saying baton Central Arkansas. Or with state chamber of commerce that kind of thing yeah we have that was our first line of canvassing back in twenty nineteen and I was pleasantly surprised by one or two chambers of commerce and unfortunately I was not getting much traction in the others I will say that Harrison has actually tried to do a program like this last year without knowing what strive ones and so they ran fifteen teachers through it was more of a job shattering tech thing in here soon with fifteen different businesses and they reached out to me a month ago and said Hey I can't believe you're doing this we need to partner so we are actually up there additional you know maybe they have fifteen teacher of the year that run something like this and maybe strive alumni from previous year because we have for teachers from that area this summer participating maybe they can help run yes a professional development of their and some more serious kind of deep dive things for the community so yes we're we're trying to seven use an additional contacts are welcome. We should. In from the business side I would say that we think this is that important piece in our workforce development just have been teachers understand what we do the mission and and then going back to their there's classrooms and their students in Latin and say like Whitney said this is how you're going to use the skill out in this world because this summer I was that this industry so we think it's important part of workforce development representative live free. Thank you senator thank you all so much I think hearing from you and this major is really helpful and I'm a former educator myself and I know it is tricky to kind of step into that summer time the also how vital it is to find meaningful professional development and so I think your voice is particularly helpful and garnering and other teachers to come along and I have kind of a logistical questions because I would love to get and some Springdale teachers connected that's why representative looks like you'll have and spring no business partners but they're not active because they're new Springdale teachers so I'm just wondering if they will Meeks is the and the business partner well they just kind of stay in a holding pattern for this year and then hopefully we'll get some teachers connected and and twenty three or four and then what can I do to kind of an get some teachers connected I would love to. As the music to my ears so we have Meeks and write out our most of our locations in northwest Arkansas we would love to have more integrity is another partner who to solar panel development design and so they're in energy sector and so Yes businesses will stay in a holding pattern answer the question first the way that we do it is ideally every business in the state would say we're interested send us your applicants from the community so what we do one percent so water any other businesses okay we have eight applicants from the Little Rock area either said they're willing to drive up to thirty minutes so we here's a spreadsheet of those applicants and their information your resumes that kind of stuff so I sent out then to our business partner so Jean within look over that list you say okay what of these eight I think three would potentially be a good fit with the mentors that we have identified. So interview those three well turns out that to those of you really good fit one of those I don't think that you know what they want is to be in the streams which was whatever opportunities so these two are acceptable candidates and then we do that from all the businesses in this geographic area and in the end I play matchmaker try to okay how can I best benefit all the teachers and business partners alike and we make a final decision so being a can confirm to business partner does not mean you have to take any teachers it does not mean that we will force any teacher and your site or any one up from their side as well if you apply for Springdale but you the opportunity Meeks is not worthwhile we would not force you into that placements everyone has to agree. So the more teachers we have entrusted more business partners we have interest the more likely we are to have successful partnerships thank you. Even just sending posting on your social media for us would be awesome especially if to apply for next year and I will be presenting at the chamber of commerce in this is a Springdale Rogers combined Little Rogersville yeah I'll be presented their chamber of commerce meeting June fifteenth I believe it is subdivided up to that but I'd be happy to while I'm up there there's NO SI think I can be to Gates marches that happened to. Thank you representative Beatty do you want to come to the Mike so we can hear you. I know you had a question. And not only that but we can't live stream you you're not and that's why I wanted this state I'm not. Dr Bailey I'm glad you you mentioned that making a priority in Southeast Arkansas are in southern Arkansas it was the first thing I noticed about the presentation was the lack of color of the yellow and purple Dotson in in that area so representative down there what what means of communicating and and getting your information out have you have you utilized to get the word out south Arkansas about your program. So the major means of communication or the statewide list service because it reaches all teachers in all corners of the state last year we had a participant in elder radio who worked at lanxess chemicals manufacturing from down there and there seem to be getting on that's in there and so we were going to use that as leverage point that dissolves that partnership to an end the entrance there is well so I think statewide science fairs we try to attend those and and we try to reach out to partners at universities in their statement centers I presented a co op I've reached out to chambers of commerce but I am would love to have more ideas we do have a few business partners that are down there so for instance white bluff enters the facility Clearwater paper as expressed in trust COVID has kept them from bring anyone in so we actually had teachers award of work there this summer because it is kept covered policies keep teachers out and I know in south Arkansas being a high industrial area a lot of the chemicals that they manufacture you have to go through at least five six weeks of last safety training in order to work in those facilities so that was one of the things that we're running into with a only a five week program even not like us limited there and on the radio they make fires Jean and you have to have a special certification before you can even step foot inside of their facility on the days of their manufacturing not substance so connecting with other businesses that are industry wide and it's something that we started doing. Follow up that will I'd be glad to help and assist in that area getting you into the educators and through the chamber of commerce's in in that lower part of the state because I think it's a good program that you would have interest in buying in but a lot of times it's just trickle down we learned about it several years after programs out there in this the first I've heard of strive and I think you can have some buy in from industry and the educators down there so be glad to share your information yes I think that that that that is a big thing up for as I said I didn't know anything about the program and I'm all about workforce and that education didn't know about it until I read it in a in a commissioners a memo I would never have known about this program and yet it really is is critically important and if you've just started the caucus the of course the caucus there are I mean if you just just think about and we've talked about it ourselves but like construction there's just all kinds of things in that hole filled in the same thing with the with the forestry caucus you've got all that all those opportunities for Young people are and that's where they go live is in those in those areas so this is kind of where we have to use our creative brains to think about and then how do we encourage and and get educators to be interested in this and to understand you said it yourself it would just kind of changed the way you think about things and and so that's that's sort of what we want people to do is be able to think differently about. How you see the world and how your kids see the world Sam. Any other questions. representative right sorry. Thank you Mr chairman. Could we get that mailed back up please shows Arkansas. You guys can do that yes ma'am. Bill. Mississippi Poinsett Crittenden said Francis lady envelopes and to shake counties those counties are losing population is coming and going in the last ten years. L. we have a. The biggest Bilko of manufacture in the United States and in viable and sail Arkansas. And and they're doing great I mean they they go when they pick the children up at eleven eleventh grade in twelfth grade and bring them to the college and they're getting college credit but even with all those jobs that are being created or not we're seeing a downward motion of population I just wonder with this program here does it work hand in hand with the work force and also the What was the other program that we were speaking of for your service. Yes ma'am to the eight do you all work together to try to create all. We're beginning to make some of those connections thanks very much the Senator English I think there's been a lot of silos across the state and so we will be breaking down some of those walls and so Senator English has also connected me with their data of and Robert The thank you and so trying their all these programs that exist and to figure out what's currently happening what needs to happen and so I'll be participating in a workshop this summer on how to use statewide data in order start asking some questions connected with other people follow please kind of falling for lease. The reason that I ask you this you all is I don't think that we're reaching the children and the graduates of those schools in the proper manner because a lot of those kids are leaving and they never come back and I just hope that with these working hand in hand that maybe our teachers can go into the community and put up ten points on the H. student of which direction that they could go to be successful. Maybe at that last summer we started building a partnership with ready for life Arkansas are you familiar with this initiative it's of workforce development program so I think leaves the governor's initiative where it's essentially a job seeker's portal where you log in you create account create a resume and then you search for jobs in your area and so I can start off very simply for a tenth grade student saying aye you know I want to be a doctor and then it shows I'm a doctor and salary what training you need but then it also says if you like this what about these other jobs that may require less education training and their here's where they are in your community and so this is a platform is currently being built out I've I'm not sure what everyone's interaction with this has been but it isn't quite ready to do all of that yet. We actually work with them every single professional development day we had last summer to try to train teachers to use the platform to bring it back to the classroom so the students could create account create a resume some of that you can even doing small credentialing my credentialing on the website and they can do you know some safety training and some different skills based training in the website to add that to the resume and then they could look for the jobs in the community to keeping a pie for through the website businesses also create a landing site on that page post office that kind of thing so it's meant to be a statewide Hey did you know these jobs in your community here's what it looks like here's a little video interview of someone in that job never heard of it before that's okay thank you senator mission so there are some initiatives we're trying to to work with and we're hoping that that one can pan out because that is completely irrelevant of where you want to state that posts jobs and it gains in trust and all different types of careers but also to kind of answer your your questions about those areas if we can get teachers into those businesses in those areas and positively impacted them and they go back and positively impact the students then you will see more students staying in those areas because usually if they hear about a business and they didn't know about it before it's usually something bad and so then they don't have a connection to it other than that bad experience or something someone said so the teacher is gone into that business and they've learned the ins and outs and they come back to the classroom and they're connecting all their content to what they learned then the students are going to be more engaged and say Hey maybe I want to go work there one day. And we have an Russellville for instance Rockline industries is a partner of ours and they have a career tech ed internship program they bring students you know high school age students and for internships throughout the school year and then they hire them at the end of it but they don't have enough students applying because the teachers don't know about the program so we're helping their by bringing teachers in the schools feeder schools for the internship program so we would love to do that in Eastern Arkansas as well those are the types of partnerships that are the most fruitful. It's all about communicating and we've just gone there's so much going on out there so many really good things that I figure out how we coordinated also everybody knows has access to all this good stuff that's going on. Thank you so very much for your presentation it's exciting we're going to round up everybody in this room is going to find an industry and a teacher we appreciate that chart action. Binding industry the teacher my email address at the bottom of the slide. Like to send an email or just go will strive Arkansas and you'll see a beautiful website now. Thank you thanks okay so. Right now we're going to have doctor T. no more once again we're trying to figure out how do we that align the all the stars that are going on here and doctor Moore is with the department of education. And add a has the stamp program over there but it's got some really exciting things to talk about so I will if you would introduce yourself issue will be recognized. All of this all fits together may not seem like it but it all fits together. Okay there we go so Tina Moore and I'm the director of the stem and computer science continue on by the Arkansas department of education and thank you senator English for your invite to share today and thank you for those who have been able to join today I'm in my role I seek to connect K. twelve and post secondary education workforce opportunities for stem and computer science and my role and I'll be like Aaron I'm used to Max so we'll see how this goes switching slides but my role aligns well with the federal stem goals to build strong foundations instead literacy increase diversity equity inclusion and stem and what I'll focus on today is prepared the stem workforce for the future. So I'd like to start by thinking what are stem careers we just heard a lot about stem through the strive program so think about what comes to mind when you hear the term stem careers you can probably start making a list in your head we could go around and spend all afternoon name and some things off but it's actually not well defined different federal agencies defined stem differently there's not one overarching definition of this is a list of stem careers if we look at the classification of instructional programs at the higher end level there is not one list of stem jobs so it becomes a little challenging I will refer to the National Science Foundation most recent report the stem labor force of today because in that report they outlined a definition for the stem labor force they start by highlighting the traditional definition that had been used in the past and that was to be individuals with at least a bachelor's degree so bachelor's and beyond that worked in science and engineering occupation such as those within these five categories and if you look at those that's probably top careers that came to mind computer mass scientist biological agriculture environmental life sciences six address and then at the bottom you'll notice it also included some other occupations that were science and engineering related such as doctors and nurses and computer programmers so traditionally decades past this is how the National Science Foundation has defined the stem workforce will be getting in twenty twenty one because of the increasing prevalence of technology in the workplace they have expanded that definition to include stem jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree that completely changes the landscape and speaks quite a bit to what the first group talked about when they were talking about stackable credentials or the last group when they talked about making sure students no more than just the engineering jobs the jobs or four year degrees. So these are called middle skill occupations in stem and so now when we look at the K. twelve to workforce pathways we have to look at everything yes there are still many jobs that require bachelor's degree or more advanced degree if I'm having surgery I hope that they've gone to a little bit more than a short of partnership you know I want them to have gone through lots of training and education but we have many jobs that are good paying jobs students may be able to even are those credentials and high school through concurrent credit they may be able to leave high school and go straight into an apprenticeship like at the Arkansas center for data science and they can get a really good job especially in tech fields so we have to think about all of these different pathways and even earlier than eight U. L. R. computer science faculty person he mentioned that we also have pathways that someone who might be out working it in the field doing something different they want to return and they can get a graduate certificate or they could completed apprenticeship I know that Lonnie who's been here before with Arkansas center for data science has spoken to people not have a degree in a separate field like an English major and they would go through a a CDS apprenticeship and now they're data scientists so we have lots of opportunities now when we think about the stem work sector in Arkansas we could go through and and lists several we might think of our aerospace and defense industry we may think of health care agriculture and we can make up a long list so you you may wonder why I'm saying stemming computer science because isn't computer science part of stem eleven yes it definitely is parsed them so why do we say stem and computer science will there are reasons for that we are in well into industry four point oh and you've heard that from the previous presentations today saw one elaborate too much but we're all impacted by technology you do not have to be an advanced manufacturing to see that. Everything we do the the things that I grew up thinking or sci fi are now becoming commonplace who would have thought would have autonomous vehicles and that the governor would convene a commission on the future of mobility but that's the world that we live in how many of us use Amazon. If you don't do a good for you not given over to the dark side my family is highly addicted to Amazon so um those top platforms I know that I use Google drive I do all my work either on Google drive or Microsoft teams or Microsoft outlook or three sixty five all of that impacts everyone and to quote to Scott Anderson from forge Institute leagues Kali lease colleague he says that all industries are now tech companies and that is true because of cyber security it doesn't matter what your industry is your tech company we know that computer and IT jobs are expected to grow tremendously over the next decade and these are high paying jobs are good for our Kansans and good for Arkansas's economy I like to quote Mike Preston are secretary of commerce because he stated the future of Arkansas Economic Development is tied to our ability to succeed in data analytics and computing so that is the reason that we talk about the stem continue on we explicitly say and computer science because that has to be a focus no matter what other part of stem we're talking about. I will further say that my position is to connect the different players in this continue on so we have K. twelve and higher read as far as education many different government agencies have purview of stem whether we're talking not just department education but the department of commerce earlier OSD was mentioned the Office of skills development the department of health department of agriculture we can go on and on we also have to work with business and industry with talks today about those partnerships and how important they are I would suggest that Arkansas can consider doing what many other states have already done some have done this over a decade ago some only recently like Alabama and twenty twenty and that is having a governing board for stem in their state and that is something that is not just housed in education only it's not just housed in commerce only it is house at the top level so all of these entities have a governing coordinating board to pull that all together I could send you some references for some to look at Alabama's eggs is executive order happened in twenty twenty and you can look at it when you start looking you'll be like we're doing that Arkansas we're doing that we're doing that we're doing the work but it's fragmented so we really need to pull that all together so that is a recommendation I would like to make. So where does all begin it all begins with education that's the part of the continuing we have to start at and we actually have to start very early so we talked about dealing with business and industry and about teachers knowing about career so students can know about careers and all that is true and all that is true in high school and all that's true in higher ed we have to start before that we have to start in early elementary we have to build career awareness and exposure to stem practices now if I had all day and I could literally talk all day about each one of these icons on here and the work that's being done in stem in K. twelve and higher education but because of our limited time I will distress a few things and that is one that career exploration pieces so important in elementary and middle school if students are exposed to this by middle school it's not as likely that they're going to pursue a stem career especially students from low income families or from families that aren't typically recognized and seen in stem careers I know that I grew up in a low income family and I didn't know much beyond just what I saw in my everyday life and I never even knew about engineering jobs until my chemistry instructor and high school said you know the highest paid bachelor degree is chemical engineering I got my attention but full and luckily I was on a track that I was already in advanced math but it's too late if you hear that eleventh grade you're already behind in math if you just make that decision at that point so we have to start that career exploration early the state's doing some things partnering we already have a partnership with learning but blade and now we're extending that to career blade which will be an early L. elementary so career exploration is a big piece another big piece is advising students what I just mentioned students have to know what math and science is needed before they go to college many degrees require calculus as a freshman many four year degrees and if students did not have the appropriate math in high school they're not gonna be prepared so advising students with. Meaningful student success plans which are part of legislation that is another key element and another one that I would stress would be to and sure. That those in business and industry partnerships are taking place I had mentioned that career exploration for elementary high school students do need those opportunities like Dr Bailey mention for internships to take place so that that's some of the key pieces and I will talk about insuring that stem practices are throughout K. twelve you may be familiar with the foresees of the twenty first century some referred to these as soft skills I recently heard these described more appropriate as power skills and I would say these are powers bills because business and industry it doesn't even have to be stem all employers want their employees to have the skills and you will see communication collaboration critical thinking and creativity embedded in the stem practices if you're not familiar with this the stem practices in K. twelve education the computer science math and science product and content standards have accompanying practice standards so in K. twelve regardless what grade you're in if you're a computer science learning environment you should be learning these other skills that are on the far left if you're in a math class room regardless of your and fifth grade math you're in calculus you should be engaged in those standards for mathematical practice if you're learning about cell mitosis you should still be learning to construct explanations and design solutions based on the size practices so these are all skills that students need to learning K. twelve that will extend into higher ed because long gone are the days of it being enough just to know some basic facts that that is antiquated and will not get you a job or use it certainly won't sixty new job with the skills. I think we're all familiar with the governor's computer science and coding initiative is there anyone who has not heard of that. Okay it's making sure and it is really amazing the work that that initiative has achieved and Anthony and his team have really done some amazing things including this group of courses at the high school level each of these represents a three year sequence and program of study that students can engage in. In a dream world every student in every Arkansas high school have access and get to choose which one of these they want to do their school would offer all of them that's not a reality that would that would be quite a challenge but we are working with the office of skills development office of skills development to promote more of these be offered in secondary career centers because if they can be offered in secondary career centers that means students not only have more access to this course work but they can get concurrent credit and even earn credentials such as a technical certificate in cybersecurity if they're partnering with the secondary school career center that's offering the topper degrees that you L. R. mentioned earlier. All highlight I just picked one here if a student took the three year program of study for artificial intelligence and machine learning after that three years they would be poised to test for these industry recognized certifications so you can imagine the advantage that a student would have graduating high school age eighteen already have in the certifications their choices would be up to them to I want to go ahead pursue an entry level job somewhere do I want to enroll in apprenticeship do I want to begin a two year or four year degree and even if they were going down the four year degree path what advantage they would have to already have this under their belt so that's really powerful that students can do that high school. You're likely familiar with ACT seven fifty seven. That called for a licensed practical nursing pathway for high school students that's under way in the pilot will be this coming school year that's been a massive partnership between the departments of commerce health education currently there are three secondary career centers around the state that are affiliated with higher ed institutions that have agreed to pilot this and they are now recruiting high schools in their areas to send students. So we can highlight lots of different partnerships between K. twelve and higher ed the concurrent credit being a big piece and not just for big programs like LPN or three way pathway for cyber security even just one off opportunities for concurrent like ensuring that if they need to get college algebra they can go ahead and take their college algebra through concurrent credit a big piece I would harp on and that is building the stem and computer science educator pipeline this is a major challenge for not only K. twelve but also higher ed. It's especially challenging with computer science certainly all stem careers could find more money in the corporate sector but computer science just talk takes that to a whole nother level because you can teach computer science to make a certain amount of money or you could work from your home anywhere you want and make if you heard what Lee was saying earlier about the cost of that people wanting just to be an instructor for cybersecurity of two hundred fifty thousand dollars I think he he mentioned so this is a real challenge or we're going to have to extend this be on the list of the department of education this is going to have to have some support around the board and I know that this past year I had to help help teach math and one of our schools in Arkansas for a bit because they were short a certified math teacher and so we took turns those of us the department of education who are certified math to go teach so building this pipeline is something that we can't just hope happens magically it's going to take some concerted efforts I don't pretend to know all those answers but it's something that I hope that we can bring to the forefront I know the department's doing a lot trying to recruit teachers in general you may recall when I was here in December I mentioned discussions on including a data science or computing option in the state general education core and we have had conversations with all of the chief academic officers and one off conversations with many other leaders and faculty at colleges and universities across the state are getting good traction there I'm hoping to be able to move for with that soon and we have a lot of great by and we're also talking about adding a couple of courses such as a data science and the cybersecurity course intro level course and the Arkansas course transfer system that could count as this option I think we can agree if we go back to the industry four point oh slide and talk about all the things internet of things and that impacts our daily life that having a general understanding of data science or computing. Is part of a well rounded education in this day and age and should be part of the general education core and then my final bullet point here is the importance of collaboration and engaging in consortia such as that that you L. R. shared earlier we will never be able to get to scale across our state especially in our rule colleges or two year colleges across the state and lest we collaborate it's just not possible logistically financially there's not enough manpower to do it we have to collaborate and that's the key to it in addition to that the cybersecurity program there's or data science program that's through an NSF that score grant you may have heard of it the dark grant data analytics that are robust and true and I think true might be trusted I should check my notes on that that that is in partnership with the economic of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission overseeing that grant with you CA and you you have a in Fayetteville and they are similarly trying to create a common curriculum shared courses shared resources for data science that's to the biggest filled so if we can and Arkansas knockout cybersecurity and data science will be a long way down that road. And speaking of collaboration the ecosystem that Aaron referenced earlier is from our meeting in December that centered English participate in so thank you for that we had the Arkansas data science in computing summit which spawned this ecosystem because everyone's like we have to keep this up this can't be a one and done meeting we have to continue to have conversations between business industry education and other partners and that's what this is we have over eighty members to date and are first statewide meeting for this is may twenty eighth here in central Arkansas we've identified five separate regions in our state and at selected leaders for each of those regions as well as subject matter experts we have one for data science one for cyber cybersecurity and someone who is the subject matter expert for apprenticeships and I am hopeful that down the road for this will take us and we're just on the beginning of the very infancy stages so we'll have more to share on that later so that was a data dump and you set through a lot here so I'm just going to leave the slides with you just like we don't have a formal definition of what is a stem career the same thing happens with computer science in computer science that's a broad umbrella if we ask a computer science professor what's computer science it's a specific one thing there's one thing that's a computer science bachelor degree when we say computer science were meaning computer science of data science cybersecurity programming robotics artificial intelligence we mean all those things so this is the list of zip codes that were pulled you can reference this to the classifications special programs in CVS website if you want to know exactly what all of the step codes are but you'll see slides that list since two thousand fifteen since the beginning of the governor's computer science initiative which has primarily been focused on K. twelve the. These are the postsecondary credentials offered and credentials at earned and you will see them also disaggregated by certificate of proficiency Technos technical certificate and beyond so you have all the slides to look at later and you will see that they have increased and Tom what's offered what has been awarded there was an anomaly of master's degrees in computer science offered essay you and two thousand seventeen and eighteen I haven't talked to them yet to know exactly what was going on there but but that there was a run for master's degrees in computer science there that those two years but still if we look at all this focus on this if we look at all credentials and the increase from two thousand fifteen to twenty one and C. as credentials we'll see the increase was similar and we'll see the decrease I'm a little bit heavier in CS this past year we know that with changes in CO with there's a little bit of a lag for credentials aren't across the board. So I have talked a whole lot but trying to wrap it up because I know you all been here awhile what questions you have for me. So representative makes. I'm always good for questions to write the first I'm a. Almost all start off with an apology because of this this is a very important subject and you can see there's only a few lawmakers laughed and that kind of goes to my my first question you know I on that list of ten degrees that you had or listed I have to actually have credentials in two of them but they're from the nineteen nineties so I have no doubt that their way outdated and and and there are no problem no longer valid. So my my first concern as a policy maker is it Otchere the technology committee in trying to keep all the stuff I you know I try to read the periodicals in the news but because I'm not plugged into the industry anymore it's hard for me to know exactly what's going on in the ins and outs and so when you talked about having this data consortium folks getting together. I as a policy maker and I don't know if any of my other colleagues to be interested in this I would love to have a source of. All sides and I don't even know if you're the person to handle this but I would love to have a a source of outside training where I can sit down with some of these thought leaders and no what is the latest that's going on and what is worse the technology gap where is the need at there's a lot of times you know we look at the stuff and you start talking about that a little you know people I started lossing over and as policy makers it's hard for us to make policies if we don't fully understand the impact of what's going on so you know if you've got any input their or opportunity for us to attend some of these things I would definitely be open open to that so I guess that's maybe more of a comment that is a question the question that I have is as I mentioned earlier is I have that program I go to schools trying to get kids interested in math and science I know there's the B. Proby proud program that does something similar tries to get kids excited in these does the department work with or what role do you see and are working with local museums are these type programs to try to bring experiences to our students especially in the rural areas of our state to try to create that spark of interest in middle school because I think you're right if you don't get him interested in in the middle school. You're you're you're playing catch up so what is the does and I may need to talk the more offline about this but kind of talk about what is it of the department to do to try to bring these experiences to our students. To get them excited about the subjects. While the opportunities you know they're on that golden age group to try to create that interest. Not that and that is a great question and there are there are lots of one off things of the department does not lots of partnerships that are going on and certainly with the computer science initiative there is so much going into that and there are our specialist around the state that work with local co ops and local schools to bring opportunities for students I will speak a little bit to the stem model program which is the hexagonal looking icon that looks just like the Stelmach icon of been using sepsis model program so we are in our pilot year of the stem model programs and what this is is it's eight recognition for schools that are model status but it's also a way for schools to become all schools and stem so we've developed a rubric that has over thirty attributes that speak to stem integration in the classroom the school and the community with business and industry and higher education and each of these schools self rates according to whether they're exploratory discovering accomplished or model and there's criteria describing each one so they can sort of know how they stand and it encourages those top learning opportunities because we want that to be prevalent in all of our schools because it's really a matter of equity that some schools offer it and some schools down so we're trying to encourage all schools but more than being just an opportunity for schools to get a designation which would be great to go ahead and say oh we have all these wonderful schools look at them we're making it an opportunity for other schools to learn and offering professional development to schools about these experiences and it really it makes a difference when schools are doing this the exposure is key and I like to tell the example I was recently on one the site visits because it the schools evaluate themselves provide evidence and artifacts and then we as a team at the department of ed review those artifacts and if we agree that they pass what's called gait. We won we then go for a site visit like I said just in the polity year we're learning a lot and will extend that next year to more schools this year we started with for an hour using three as we rounded out but I went to visit forest heights stem academy here in Little Rock I don't know if any of you are familiar with that school actually been there with the planetarium show this is actually about two weeks ago okay amazing their leadership oh my goodness if we could just clone Amy Cooper we would be doing a great job so great leadership but at the end of the day in the saab is it's we do a panel students and teachers and I ask a first grader I might not have been the one that has a question but we ask a first grader what's your favorite part of school and you know if it's a fifth or sixth grader they might've been coach some that their answer maybe a candy answer let's be honest but this was a first grader you can't coach a first grader know what they're going to say they're going to tell you the truth and you can guess what we expected her to say what do you think a first grader would say their favorite part of school is recess totally we tell it I'd be recess sometimes to get lunch sometimes you'll get P. E. but she said my favorite part of school is coding with scratch junior scratch junior as a platform to learn computer programming she's in first grade so even though the governor's computer science initiative we look at the high school courses earlier it goes all the way down it because they have standards is starting kindergarten but schools are required to actually teach coding in first grade necessarily but foresight stem is teaching coding in first grade so she's learning that now imagine how far along she is going to be by the time she gets to high school but we want all students Arkansas have such opportunities and for not to be just in these pockets of schools and so that's an example the stem model program it will really want to expand and elevate what it looks like to integrate stem because a lot of folks just don't know they don't know what to do and so if we can get this model schools that will then serve as beacons an example. As for others and along with a professional development from the math and science specialist at the co ops around the state that are funded by state Ahlers that will that will help in some degree and we also partner this is not necessarily a formal partnership of would like the innovation hub in north little rock Aaron saying or they're does amazing work and they not only allow students to come into the innovation hub but they can go out into communities they have like a mobile huh that they bring around a mobile maker space to get students in involved in these activities in fact Aaron's taken a hold of another level and is doing a virtual stem field trip for Ukrainian students and having it translated so she's she's got two little extra on that and so and there are lots of opportunities that there's certainly room for more growth has the has the following. I know you wanted this to be a conversations on taking full advantage of that so I kind of along those lines and that has the department or have you all considered making a rock our resource page available so that if if if the teacher. Is so wanting to a host some sort of stem experience for students that they can go to this page and say you know this is in all the the pros available the innovation hubs available this have you all consider doing anything like that so that schools and teachers know what resources are available to promote these experiences for their students we have considered it it's a work in progress we just started a stem Page we we've had different stem pages we started a stem page that I oversee that connects to our computer science initiative our math initiative or science initiative or similar program and we're creating a resources page with those type things it is that part is not completed yet the resources but that's certainly something that is is to be added to that page ongoing excellent thank you thank you thank you. Are there any other questions yes what. Thank you senator thank you Dr Moore I I really and I appreciate your comments about power skills and just wanted to talk about that briefly because I think there if you're not in schools there's kind of this and understanding of of soft skills are power skills as those are skills from industry that industry thing we need our workers to be equipped with the things that I think that is true but also I think you did a good job of pointing out that those practices are already in curriculum standards those practices are part of learning stem that is also true and other content areas it's true in English language arts it's true in English language development proficiency it's even true in social emotional learning and so what we've heard a lot today is just how important it is to not be filed load and to not be and how important collaboration is and so I'm wondering if there's been any worked under any conversations had kind of cross disciplinary cross disciplinary Lee to think about. These four seeds and other soft skills power skills not only in stem but also in other learning opportunities across the school day to kind of highlight how these are actually academic skills or social emotional skills embedded in the curriculum currently and how to kind of highlight that and pull that out for teachers that they're not feeling like and also I have to do soft skills they already are when they're teaching stem well when they're teaching English language arts speaking and listening well when they're teaching social emotional learning well they are equipping their kids with the five thousand just wanting if there had been any cross disciplinary cross curricular conversations in the power skills yes sorry very much so so and it does see the Division elementary and secondary education there's the guide for life and the guide for life explicitly highlights the skills and if you Google guide for life Arkansas you'll find it I can go to our website if if you like we have the guide for life that speaks to the skills and other skills in fact in my previous life when I was leaving the math initiative we tied in the guide for life skills with the math standards because they are perfect mers overlap so well Furthermore in the Division of learning services they have something they refer to as the the lens's of learning and if you look at that Lynn's of learning you will see the guide for life embedded in there along with the content standards because that's the point it all goes together it's cohesive it's not of this or that they are taught together you can't teach one well without including all of them so I'm really glad that you brought that up the guide for life has been around for a couple years but that's really a portrait of what we want students to graduate with because if you graduate knowing a whole lot about Arkansas the questions. But you can't communicate with people and you don't have empathy skills and you don't know how to collaborate with others it's not very useful that you can solve an equation so it really does go hand in hand and as you said it's very interdisciplinary the lives of learning through the Division of learning services act that's it though it's if we'll it's really quite beautiful you have to pull it up I would. Yeah because I know that I'm in my life I appreciate knowing that I appreciate you sharing and because I think that's really important that we're not just saying teach math science reading history and then also teach workforce skills that we can write anything grounding it in the guide for life is really forms of pride in it thank you thanks for questions. Thank you any other questions here. Well ladies and gentleman this is been a really full wonderful afternoon I can't tell you how much I appreciate Dr bins or. Dr Bailey doctor more please appreciate it so much you being here you brought us a wealth of information unfortunately these hearings are still live streamed so I'm hoping that there were a number of people outside that were all watching this as well good information we all it and everybody I'd like what everybody's doing we just have to figure out how we get it all coordinated and so then I love your idea of what the stem council because I've thought about that legislation in this last session but didn't get to that but I think that having that coordination is really important and I really appreciate your explanation of the Tell you before my perception of the stem is is that you have to be an MIT graduate in engineering or biotechnology or something and it but you can design a plan or you can fix a plane and those are all stem kinds of jobs and we've just got to figure out how we make it less elitist I guess is the what always pops in my mind that there just so many things out there that people can do but they have to have the skills to be able to do it so thank you again so much for all of you for being here we really appreciate it and the information and your teams that you brought with this with you appreciate that very much and so far I think we are turned thank you thank you.