Southern Oregon’s regional (Jackson, Josephine, and Klamath counties) Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Hub has been invited to build local capacity for STEM through a grant opportunity with Oregon Community Foundation (OCF). OCF’s IGNITE grant seeks to ignite partnerships between business and education to advance opportunities for specific target populations in Career and Technical Education (CTE)-STEM: rural, low-income, students of color and girls.
To prepare for that opportunity, the Southern Oregon STEM Hub retained Dialogues in Action (DIA) to conduct a needs assessment. DIA developed an interview protocol and purposeful stratification, received input from the Guidance Group on valuable community members to interview, and interviewed a total of 34 individuals. Additionally, DIA conducted background data analysis on existing data on the region’s employment and education pathways and outcomes. Finally, the data findings were presented to a group of community leaders, who workshopped them, elevated the most salient points, and contributed to a series of possible responses to the needs assessment.
The following report provides a clear picture of the region’s employability and economic growth for high wage, high demand careers; available pathways and opportunities to increase access for target populations; and accessibility gaps and opportunities for industry and education to actively partner to strengthen pathways for target populations, leading to high wage, high demand jobs.
Read the Southern Oregon Regional Needs Assessment Report