Business and Community Leaders Invited to Join Partner with a Principal 2024

Business and community leaders are invited to participatein theannualPartner with a Principal program, hosted by the City of Phoenix Youth and Education Office. During the weeks of Sept. 9 Oct. 18, local corporate executives and community leaders will work alongside Phoenix public, charter,and private school principals to actively participatein the school's administration for one day.

After experiencing the life of a school principal for a day, the principals and their executive counterparts will discuss how local businesses, community leaders and schools can form lasting partnerships to improve the quality of education, workplace readiness and leadership development programs in Phoenix.

Last year, 61partnerships were developed andas a part of this program, staff from Grand Canyon University (GCU) partnered with school administration at Bernard Black Entrepreneur Academy and Tomahawk Elementary School, "At GCU we are always looking at ways to provide outreach to our community, so we jumped right on board when we heard about the 'Partner with a Principal' program," Dr. Carol Lippert, asst. vice president at GCU said. "It was a way for us to get individuals from GCU who maybe aren't as familiar with how K-12 schools work and operate on a regular basis, and to also explore ways for us to partner with those schools into the future."

Laveen School District also partnered with Chasse Building Team and Vulcan Materials Company. Dr. Jeff Sprout, superintendent of Laveen District says, "The keyword in our relationship with Vulcan and Chasse is "evolving." The greatest aspect of these relationships is they evolve with the needs of the district, but also throughout that relationship we hear about their needs as well and so that helps us to equip our students to be their future workforce."