Education & Workforce Conference

Leah Carper, M.Ed., Director of Stakeholder Engagement, Guilford County Schools
2022 North Carolina State Teacher of the Year

Leah Carper will open the convening by grounding the day in the real-world needs of students, educators, workers, employers, and communities. Her remarks will set the stage for a practical conversation about how North Carolina can better connect education, work, and opportunity in a changing economy.

Artificial intelligence, shifting skill demands, changing learner expectations, demographic pressures, and growing employer need are all forcing the same question: how can we adapt quickly enough to preserve our state’s competitive advantage in talent & workforce development? It has become clearer every day that our institutions are still operating with processes, timelines, and assumptions built for a slower era.

This session will make the case for new operating models in education and workforce development — one that can diagnose problems faster, set clearer goals, understand employer and learner needs more deeply, and adjust as conditions change. Rather than treating change as an occasional strategic planning exercise, this session will focus on the habits, structures, tools, and decision-making processes organizations need to keep up continuously.

The discussion will explore how leaders can set goals that cut through noise, use better information to understand tradeoffs, benchmark changing skill needs, map industries and occupations more quickly, and build systems that can move from insight to action faster.

Vincent Ginski, Senior Director of Workforce Competitiveness, NC Chamber Foundation

Student success does not happen in isolation. It is shaped by a network of educators, employers, community organizations, policymakers, families, and workforce leaders working together to support learners at every stage of their journey.

This session will explore the interconnected ecosystem that influences student outcomes and workforce readiness, highlighting the roles that various stakeholders play in creating pathways to opportunity. Panelists will discuss strategies for strengthening collaboration across sectors, addressing barriers to success, and building systems that better connect education, community support, and workforce needs.

As North Carolina works to meet the demands of a rapidly changing economy, understanding how these stakeholders align around shared goals will be critical to developing the talent pipeline of the future.

Attendees will have time to connect with peers, speakers, employers, educators, and workforce leaders before moving into breakout sessions focused on implementation.

Breakout 1: Emerging Practices in Employer Engagement — What’s Working Now and What’s Ahead

The traditional employer engagement playbook — advisory boards, annual surveys, occasional guest speakers, one-off site visits — was built for a slower-moving labor market. As skills shift faster, employers grow more skeptical of programs that don’t produce talent quickly, and intermediaries multiply in every region, leading organizations are quietly rebuilding how they engage employers from the ground up.

This session will surface the practices that are starting to replace the old model. Panelists will share what they’re testing, what’s gaining traction, and what early results suggest about where employer engagement is headed. The conversation will focus on concrete shifts — in how partnerships are structured, how employer input gets translated into action, and how roles are formed.

Breakout 2: Making Skills Data Useful Enough to Act On

“Skills-first” has become one of the most common phrases in education and workforce development. But the phrase itself does not solve much. A lot of skills data is messy, generic, inconsistent, or disconnected from the real decisions employers, educators, and learners have to make.

This session will cut through the noise and focus on how to make skills information practical. Participants will examine how better data, clearer proficiency levels, employer validation, and stronger translation between jobs and curricula can help employers and institutions move faster and make better decisions.

The session will include perspectives from skills data experts, employers, and educators on what it takes to make skills-first strategies real.

Breakout 3: Scaling Work-Based Learning: Moving from Boutique Programs to Built-In Systems

Work-based learning is one of the clearest ways to connect education and employment. But too often, it remains limited to small numbers of students, highly motivated employers, or programs with unusual capacity.

This session will focus on what it actually takes to scale work-based learning across programs, institutions, and regions. Panelists will examine different types of work-based learning, what makes each model resource-intensive, and how organizations can embed work-based learning into courses and programs rather than treating it as an add-on.

The discussion will also address a hard truth: work-based learning cannot scale if it depends entirely on heroic efforts. Systems need clearer structures, stronger employer value propositions, better coordination, and more realistic cost models.

Attendees will continue conversations from the morning sessions and connect with leaders across education, workforce development, business, philanthropy, and policy.

Everyone says employer leadership matters. The harder question is whether employer leadership is harnessed in a way that actually changes decisions, improves programs, and produces better outcomes.

Too often, employers are asked for feedback without a clear purpose. Educators are left to translate broad input into program design. Workforce partners struggle to coordinate competing priorities. The result is a lot of conversation, but not enough action.

This session will explore expert-driven perspectives on how AI is reshaping jobs, skills, hiring, training, and career mobility. It will also examine what these changes mean for workforce development strategy, including how employers and institutions can better anticipate skill shifts, support learners and workers, and build stronger talent pipelines.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how AI is changing the workforce and what education and workforce leaders need to do now to prepare.