Together with its partner schools, NC New Schools is engaging industry and higher education like never before to provide relevant industry-linked learning opportunities for North Carolina’s students — and teachers — to help fuel the state’s talent pipeline. For their part, teachers are capitalizing on an increasing number and variety of summer opportunities opening to them with businesses and other employers to learn about the world of work, first hand. From intensive single-day experiences during STEM Day earlier this summer, to formal on-site externships to structured summer residencies, teachers from North Carolina’s innovative schools are getting real insight into the meaning of the world “relevance.”

Beginning with five externships in 2012, NC New Schools has expanded its work in 2013 to provide 16 teachers with paid summer externships with employers such as Cisco, Duke Energy, ABB, LORD Corporation, BASF, NC Prevention Partners, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Eight of the externships are being offered in partnership with Kenan Fellows Program and the NC Department of Public Instruction. Externships are made possible through corporate contributions and federal funding. In addition, at least two partner schools with NC New Schools — Brunswick County Early College High School and the Yadkin Valley Regional Career Academy — arranged their own externships after forging connections with local businesses.