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What we’ve been up to... 

While some of you are already celebrating summer, others continue moving toward the end of the school year. 

• Career Readiness in the Middle School and Elementary School – We have continued ramping up work in supporting the implementation of career readiness, postsecondary planning, and instructional improvement in middle schools and elementary schools. During these past two weeks, we have both been planning customized workshops for district leaders and working directly with teachers. The takeaways that middle school teachers in School District 21 made when examining workforce projection and postsecondary success and financial aid data have been extraordinary and are certain to impact student learning! 

• Gearing up for 2025-2026 – We have been deeply engaged with both local and statewide partners on planning for the 2025-2026 year. Professional development workshops are taking shape with dates locked in, and detailed plans are being made to launch new research projects and to support strategic planning in organizations across Illinois. As part of that, we were also able to visit DeKalb School District 428’s newest school, and the school that is the closest walk to our Illinois P-20 Network offices, Dr. Leroy Mitchell Elementary School. We’re very excited about the school’s opening in just a couple of months! 

• Supporting Dual Credit Collaboration – We continue to work with community college regions across Illinois to solve real, on-the-ground challenges that are faced when implementing dual credit. This week, we were privileged to continue our long-term engagement in DuPage County with both the College of DuPage and school districts across DuPage County as they build a sustainable, long-term model for efficient management of high-quality dual credit coursework! 

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Have you moved into a new position? Do you have colleagues new to your organization?  

Subscribing to the Illinois P-20 Network Newsletter is free, fast, and easy. Simply fill out a quick form to subscribe to the P-20 Network Newsletter. 

Also, please pass this along to colleagues new to your organization, so they can also subscribe! Invitations to participate in P-20 Network committees and workgroups as well as to attend P-20 Network events are shared through the newsletter, which is released every other Friday. 

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Our Areas of Focus – Multiple Research Projects Underway 

The Illinois P-20 Network has four Areas of Focus. One of them is Research and Data, and this Area of Focus runs directly through the majority of our work. We also engage in research projects as a result of work with governmental agencies, through direct work with partners, and on our own.  

This summer, we have three major research projects that are ongoing – one in each of our other Areas of Focus. We are exploring the impacts of current educational contacts on educational leaders and seeking to identify themes in areas of need for those leaders. We are studying the implementation of college and career readiness policy and seeking to identify key patterns that may emerge. We are also analyzing the data from the statewide KEEP Illinois Defining Educator Compensation survey. 

While these studies will be released in different ways, we do plan on wrapping these studies up during the course of the summer – Stay tuned for more information! And, if your organization would like to partner on the creation of original research, please contact us! 

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College Changes Everything – Registration Open 

You're invited to register now for the July 17 2025 College Changes Everything® (CCE) conference – How do we build community? In uncertain and changing times, hope becomes a vital anchor that enables people to navigate challenges with resilience and purpose and with a sense of belonging and community. This year we invite you to gather not only to explore new ideas and strategies, but also to actively build community that sparks inspiration and action. By engaging in meaningful dialogue and sharing best practices informed by experience, participants actively contribute to building a network of mutual support and understanding. Together, we can embody the powerful notion that hope is not just a feeling, but a shared commitment to shaping a brighter future for our students because we know education matters. As we examine this year's conference question in greater depth, we can also look at these questions: 

• How can our community better understand and meet the needs of our students? 

• How can we strengthen and expand our community? 

• How can our community work together to marshal resources for our most vulnerable students? 

Who Should Attend:
The annual conference is the state's preeminent college access and success and career readiness event. It brings together stakeholders to help Illinois reach its Goal 2025 – to increase the proportion of adults in Illinois with high-quality degrees and postsecondary credentials to 60% by the year 2025. A key strength of the conference is in bringing together a diverse audience from across the state to focus on educational opportunity and student success: college access practitioners; high school leaders, counselors, and case managers; college and university leaders and administrators; employers and workforce development professionals; and policymakers and elected officials interested in higher education and career readiness. The conference also serves as an opportunity for stakeholders to improve their practice of collaboration and collective leadership as we work toward the state's goal. We hope you will attend the conference as we stand together as a group of like-minded professionals committed to improving outcomes for all learners. The conference agenda will be available in June. More information about the conference, the Tinley Park Convention Center, and the hotel is available on the conference website. 

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Check out our original research on Work-Based Learning 

Earlier this year, we were excited to launch the SkillsUSA Illinois Apprenticeship and Work-Based Learning Landscape Analysis Report, which is a novel and comprehensive initial look at apprenticeships, internships, and work-based learning broadly among young people, including high school and postsecondary students across Illinois. 

Thanks to the support of SkillsUSA Illinois, a team comprised of researchers from the Illinois P-20 Network and Northern Illinois University’s Workforce Policy Lab at the Center for Governmental Studies was able to examine data that had heretofore not previously been analyzed, to collect new data through surveys of employers and educational organizations, and to integrate this data with other existing governmental data. The results provide a baseline for practitioners across Career Pathways and across the Workforce Development Pipeline from school districts to postsecondary institutions, unions, government agencies, and businesses of all sizes. 

With summer hopefully allowing much of the Illinois P-20 Network’s audience to slow down a little, we wanted to suggest that it may be a good time to check out this original study. 

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Illinois P-20 Network
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