Partners for Professions
75+WBL hours required per student for the Class of 2029 and beyond
24 months of hands-on CIESC ecosystem scaffolding
A SERVICE OF Administrative Supports View department →
Building Seamless School–Industry Ecosystems
CIESC is dedicated to helping Indiana school districts remove the burden of work-based learning compliance through building sustainable regional partnerships.
The Indiana Department of Education’s Graduation Readiness Seals require a minimum of 75 hours of high-quality work-based learning for every student in the graduating class of 2029 and beyond. Coordinating, validating, and tracking hundreds of thousands of hours across a region’s high schools is an immense operational hurdle for educators.
As an Educational Service Center, CIESC’s mission is to support and serve schools. We believe the solution is not to create short-term, temporary programs, but to build connected, regional ecosystems. By partnering with a sustaining local intermediary — a workforce board, chamber, or economic development organization — we invest two years of intensive support to build a pipeline that outlasts our initial implementation.
“I’m excited for the future of all of our Hendricks County school districts as we launch the Partners for Professions framework. By bridging the gap between classrooms and local industries, we are not only giving our students the hands-on, real-world experiences they need to thrive, but we are also building a streamlined, high-quality talent pipeline that directly feeds and strengthens our local workforce.Chris PonslerWestNext Intermediary · Hendricks College Network
Standardized Processes, Scalable Success
Our talent development framework translates high-level community commitment into structured execution. We transition regional networks away from fragmented school outreach and into a streamlined “single front door” for industry partners. Every partnership managed under our framework follows a rigorous, predictable lifecycle:
Discover
Identify and cultivate community partners aligned to educational needs and opportunities.
Connect
Ensure partners are equitably and strategically matched with schools or districts based on shared goals and capacity.
Engage
Prepare partners with the context, expectations, and support needed to work effectively with school staff and students.
Co-Design
Collaboratively develop experiences that align to defined content learning, market value assets, and workforce or labor market outcomes.
Co-Deliver
Facilitate and execute the experience in partnership to support student learning.
Evaluate Impact
Collect and analyze data to measure participation and stakeholder perception, then identify improvements for greater impact.
Recognize & Retain
Celebrate successes and renew partnership for future engagement.
Three Communities, One Framework
1Year
Talent Bound
Scaling equitable career-connected learning across a major urban metropolitan footprint.
Talent Bound is our model optimized for a large-scale, diverse urban workforce landscape. Co-led by EmployIndy as the regional intermediary lead, this initiative coordinates cross-sector strategy, aligns public and philanthropic funding, and removes systemic geographic boundaries for thousands of metropolitan youth.
Centralized Partnership Hub
Serving as the singular county-wide access point for employers to coordinate with local districts.
Unified Technology Platforms
Operating a single system of record to track student outcomes, credentials, and workforce alignment.
Vertically Aligned Experiences
Delivering a guaranteed continuum of career experiences from 9th-grade exposure through 12th-grade execution.
High-Demand Pathway Expansion
Using real-time labor data to scale onsite school programs while avoiding costly duplication.
To address site-capacity limits in a major city, Talent Bound champions innovative, industry-advised project-based learning in high-growth fields like IT, Advanced Manufacturing, and Health Sciences, ensuring all students secure valuable WBL hours.
2Years
WestNext
The blueprint for synchronized suburban and rural talent pipelines.
Now in its second year of planning, WestNext is ready for implementation and serves as our premier operational model. Managed locally by the Hendricks College Network, this mature ecosystem connects six school corporations and the Area 31 Career Center with dozens of regional employers.
WestNext brings the talent pipeline down to a precise formula where regional business demand dictates classroom skill development. By standardizing programmatic frameworks across multiple distinct school districts, WestNext ensures equitable student access to progressive, career-connected benchmarks:
EXPLORATION
Giving younger students broad exposure to regional industries and essential workplace standards.
PREPARATION
Connecting students with technical site tours, professional dialogues, and pathway-aligned projects.
IMMERSION
Transitioning seniors into rigorous internships, modern youth apprenticeships, and real-world professional experiences.
By utilizing a shared regional playbook, WestNext ensures that every hour an employer invests translates into a tangible, quality-assured recruitment tool.
Early
1Year
Northern Hamilton County Collaborative
Proving that agile grassroots networks can build robust workforce pipelines.
The Northern Hamilton County Collaborative is a powerful example of the adaptability of the Partners for Professions model. Driven directly by Hamilton Heights High School and Sheridan High School, the initiative proves that communities do not need an established county-wide chamber or massive workforce board to build an effective talent pipeline.
NHCC is led by a dedicated, local coordinator co-funded by CIESC and the Hamilton County Commissioners. This initiative establishes a unified infrastructure for school-to-business partnerships, directly connecting regional employers with students for hands-on, industry-specific training. Guided by a local advisory panel, the project aligns student coursework with evolving Indiana high school diploma requirements and local workforce needs.
Professional Support Team
Stacey Monnett
Professional Learning Specialist
Dr. Kimberly Fifer-Vissotski
Professional Learning Specialist
Kim Guindon
Northern Hamilton County College & Career Specialist
Build Your Community's Ecosystem
Is your region ready to streamline its talent development pipeline? Contact CIESC’s Partners for Professions consulting team to learn how we scaffold local infrastructure to meet Indiana’s graduation mandates.
Ready to talk about your region?
Reach out and our team will walk you through what a two-year ecosystem build looks like in your community.