PHILADELPHIA ACADEMIES, INC.

Key goals that PAI has established for the near future include:

1. Deepening its student success initiatives, including growing its work with the 9th Grade Success Network of Schools and codifying a student success approach for middle schools
2. Expanding the number of bridge/pre-apprenticeship models it supports, focusing on technology and the construction trades
3. Deepening and expanding our middle-school Career Connected Learning programming
4. Developing a more robust Tourism and Hospitality Management pathway
5. Cementing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) PD capacity and activities
6. Assuring that business partnership development and volunteerism remains a core principle of how PAI operates
7. Refining and strengthening our marketing and communication function
8. Solidifying data matrices and evaluation functions
9. Developing multiple pathways to sustainable funding
10. Bringing in new corporate and EITC funding
11. Assuring Program Alignment

Key strategies include:

1. Hiring a staff person to focus on corporate fundraising and marketing
2. Building out our Data and Evaluation teams to support enhanced student success work as well as our own internal evaluation capacity.
3. Identify and develop working relationships with partner High Schools interested in engaging in 9th grades success work and/or developing career pathways, bridge programming and pre-apprenticeships, including Charter as well as Public Schools.
4. Identify and develop working relationships with partner Middle Schools interested in exploring middle school success work as well as deepening their career awareness and exposure opportunities .
5. Identify appropriate school(s) for Tourism and Hopsitality pathway(s)
6. Create additional Industry Advisory Councils in new career areas to support relevance of career-connected learning.
7. Complete multi-year PHENND project focused on building our DEI capacity.

Some of our proudest recent accomplishments include:

• The Academies at Roxborough High School, one of 2 All Academy schools supported by PAI, received “Model Status” for their Health Sciences and Research Academy this year. Overseen by the National Career Academy Coalition, the achievement of “Model Status” comes after years of hard work, data collection, and student progress. The Academies at Roxborough is the first school in the Northeast section of the country to receive this distinguished recognition.
• PAI has begun exciting new work with K-8 schools in Philadelphia, working with 6-8th graders around topics of career pathway development and WBL exposure activities.
• After many years of partnership and work, Parkway West High School is now the first Early Childhood Education (ECE) Thematic High School in the city. Due to the guidance of PAI and investments by a variety of stakeholders, students at Parkway West now experience a 9th-grade academy, followed by a 3-year curriculum focused on Early Childhood Education through which they have the opportunity to graduate with both their CDA and college credits. PAI has also worked with Parkway West to designed an ECE Pre-Apprenticeship program, which has been certified by the State and will enable remove barriers to employment and Apprenticeships for qualified students.
• PAI has launched a Bridge Program in the Construction Trades, soon to be certified as a Pre-Apprenticeship) at Mastbaum High School, working with 11th- and 12th-grade students in the Electrical, Welding, Plumbing and Carpentry programs. This program, which involves individual case management, industry exposure, and WBL experiences, is designed to support students to graduation and one-year post-graduation to ensure they have a career plan that involves full-time work, post-secondary education or an apprenticeship program.
• PAI's 9th Grade Success Network of Schools has expanded to include 8 schools.